No Link for Misguided Misinformation – Part 4/5

September 25, 2011

Kier clearly does not know what he is writing about when he said,  “At least those in Taiwan and Hong Kong don’t need to worry about their masters keeping SARS/bird flu/ environmental disasters/fake eggs and milk etc. state secrets because their deaths would be of less worry than the danger of inconveniencing the Party.”

If you were to read Punishing Food Fraud in China, you would discover that cover ups of tainted food products have happened in the US too, and the people responsible are seldom if ever punished by the legal system, while those that are caught in China may face long jail terms and the possibility of execution.

As for the attempt to hide the  SARS/bird flu, a high-ranked Party official, who was also a Western trained doctor, leaked the news to the world, and he wasn’t executed or tossed in prison. He did get in trouble, but he lives at home enjoying his family, his life and his retirement.

There is no secret that China is suffering from pollution due to becoming the factory floor of the world after 1980.

In fact, many American manufacturers moved to China so they wouldn’t have to pay the price to be environmentally clean in the United States, which means since they couldn’t pollute legally in the West and/or America, they moved their operations to China where strict environmental laws did not exist at the time.

However, a few years ago, China consulted Greenpeace for advice on where to start cleaning up the environment and have passed laws to start the process.

Continued on September 26, 2011 in No Link for Misguided Misinformation – Part 5 or return to Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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Punishing Food Fraud in China – Part 2/2

August 15, 2011

If you read Part 1 of this two part series, you may be thinking it isn’t safe to eat in China.

However, Wall Street Journal.com says, “Struggles with food safety are not a specifically Chinese problem. Many countries, including the U.S. and Japan, have gone through similar growing pains in the food industry, says Wu Ming, a professor at Beijing University’s school of public health.”

Professor Ming is correct. Down to Earth.org reports, “Every day in the US about 200,000 people become sick, 900 are hospitalized and 14 die (that’s more than 5,000 annually) due to food borne illnesses (and few if any are punished for these deaths). According to the Center for Disease Control, about one quarter of the American population suffers from food poisoning each year.”


New U.S. Laws for food safety cover all food except meat, poultry and some egg products and there are other exceptions too.

If you believe China is not doing anything about food safety, think again. I Googled total arrests in China over food safety and the result was more than 1.5 million hits.  The first one mentioned 191 officials (in 2010 — meaning government employees) that were punished for failing to do their duty in food safety,” and some were sent to prison.

The second hit mentioned 774 (in 2007) arrested in China over food safety.

In addition, Sustainable Business Forum.com says, “Unlike the U.S., China arrests Food Safety Violators.”

Helena Bottemiller of Food Safety News.com recently reported, “Current statutes (in the U.S.) do not provide sufficient criminal sanctions for those who knowingly violate our food safety laws,” said Leahy, who has become an outspoken advocate of food safety reform. “Knowingly distributing adulterated food is merely a misdemeanor right now, and the Sentencing Commission has found that it generally does not result in jail time.”

In conclusion, if you are in the food industry in China and want to take short cuts regarding food safety to boost profits while possibly killing people along the way, the U.S. is a safer place to commit murder. In China, you might go to jail or even be executed.

What does that say about America?

Return to or start with Punishing Food Fraud in China – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Punishing Food Fraud in China – Part 1/2

August 14, 2011

This is how capitalism works. Wall Street Journal.com reports, “Ink, dye, bleach and toxic chemicals … have been found recently in food products in China, reigniting fears over food safety despite repeated government pledges to crack down on tainted eats.”

Sounds bad, but do not judge the Chinese before reading this entire two part series to find out that China is not alone in the struggle to make food safer to eat.

It isn’t as if China’s government is not trying to improve food safety. Al-Jazeera’s Melissa Chang reports from Beijing about China’s government vowing to improve food safety laws. In fact, according to Melissa Chang, more than 2,000 people across the country have been arrested for failing to meet food safety standards.

The Wall Street Journal says, “One of the biggest issues is the drive to make a buck at any cost, says Lester Ross, a Beijing-based attorney with U.S. law firm WilmerHale. Some companies see that by using additives, they can cut overhead costs or boost profit margins, and they merely aren’t thinking about the affects the additives will have on consumers, Mr. Ross says.”

Melissa Chang demonstrates how a chemical sauce to turn meats such as pork into beef can change any meat that isn’t beef into beef so the enterprising capitalist can charge more and increase profits.

Since living in China means awareness of such trickery, “Many Chinese,” Chang says, “pay a premium to know exactly where the food they eat comes from.”

Chang then talks about an organic food cooperative in the suburbs of Beijing, which was established by families to buy directly from organic farmers and the project has proven to be very successful.

However, Chang says, “Even the best intentions (may) go awry.” Organic in China doesn’t mean the food would qualify as organic outside China since so much of the air and water is polluted there.  It is a challenge to grow quality produce.

“Achieving better standards will take years,” Chang says.

However, what about food safety in the U.S.?

Continued on August 15, 2011 in Punishing Food Fraud in China – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

One Child

March 7, 2010

China’s one-child policy is due to a population of 1.3 billion people in a country where food crops may be grown on only sixteen percent of the land. What isn’t well known is that the one-child policy applies only to the Han majority. That policy does not apply to the hundred million people that belong to the fifty-six minorities in China. That means Tibetans may not be able to worship and maintain the feudal, nomadic lifestyle like they had before Mao’s reoccupation of Tibet in 1951, but they can have as many children as they want.

Crowded China

The biggest challenge is growing enough food to feed the bulging Chinese population of 1.3 billion people.  The Chinese government says if it weren’t for the one-child policy, there would be another four-hundred million mouths to feed and provide shelter for.

Meanwhile, Christians in the West (people who believe abortion is wrong) criticize China for this policy. If China did not have the one-child policy, I doubt if these antiabortion voices would have stepped up to feed four-hundred million people. How many would have starved if a famine struck?

There are other exceptions to the one child policy, and you may read about them at the Asian Correspondent .

You may also learn more about China from Tom Carter’s Book, China: Portrait of a People

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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2 Comments | China, Christianity, family values, food, health care, parenting, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse