Opinion | China still tests bottled drinking water using 'Soviet standards'

"When the World Health Organisation updated its detection methods, [we] updated the standard for tap water, but not for bottled water," an unnamed expert with the Institute for Environmental Health and Related Product Safety in Beijing told the paper.

According to these arcane regulations, China's national health inspectors do not test bottled drinking water for acidity, or pH level, or for substances including mercury and silver. 

More than five times more indicators are used to test running water than bottled drinking water, the paper said.

"Bottled drinking water regulation is lagging behind," Wang Xiuyan, an adviser on mineral water for the Beijing Mining Industry Association, told the paper. "We should follow international standards."

The bottled water market in the country is booming amid a general anxiety over tainted food productions and environmental degradation.