from The Washington Post
JAKARTA, Indonesia — After hearing about dangerous Chinese products elsewhere, Indonesia this summer began testing popular Chinese-made items on its own store shelves. What it found has added to the list of horrors: mercury-laced makeup that turns skin black, dried fruit spiked with industrial chemicals, carcinogenic children’s candy.
The Chinese government called up in August saying it had a possible solution. Husniah Rubiana Thamrin Akib, head of Indonesia’s top food and drug safety agency, was pleased and welcomed her counterparts to her office.
But according to Husniah, the Chinese suggested Indonesia lower its safety standards. Husniah said she was “very upset and very surprised.” “I said to them, ‘I respect your standards for your country. I hope you respect ours,’ ” Husniah said.
In dealing with product safety complaints from the United States, China has sought to convince a concerned American public that it has reformed and is doing all it can to ensure the safety of its products. But its dealings with other, less-developed countries or those in vulnerable political positions are a different story, according to Husniah and officials in the Philippines and Malaysia.
Indonesian officials accuse China of pushing shoddy products and inferior standards on poor countries that have no choice but to depend on it for cheap goods, aid and investment. They say that China, in closed-door meetings, has refused to share basic information, attempted to horse-trade by insisting on discussing disparate issues as part of a single negotiation and all but threatened retaliatory trade actions. The Chinese respond that their products have been the victim of unfair trade actions.
In the Philippines in July, a state-owned Chinese company threatened to sue for defamation after the Philippine government released a public warning saying a popular brand of candy was contaminated with formaldehyde. In Hong Kong, China pushed the territory to reconsider its recall of toothpaste contaminated with a chemical that other countries said might be poisonous but that China argued was present at levels safe for human consumption. It then ordered Hong Kong to submit a report on how and why it called back the toothpaste.
In Malaysia, a ban on fungus-infested nuts and dried fruit with a carcinogenic sweetener from China was met with a Chinese alert on litchi-flavored yogurt from Malaysia that it said didn’t meet labeling requirements.
Malaysia has long had a history of food safety issues with Chinese products. With each alert from Malaysia, the Chinese Embassy requests an explanation. “When they call us, we have to accept they are coming to us,” said Abdul Rahim Mohamad, director of food safety and quality at Malaysia’s Health Ministry.
Chinese food-safety officials argue that the recalls and bans by other countries amount to technical trade barriers that attempt to legitimize what would otherwise be unfair trade practices.
“I don’t really believe that Chinese products fail to meet their basic standards. That’s not true. There is competition between Chinese products and those from their countries,” said Gao Yongfu, a law professor who is the assistant to the president of the Shanghai World Trade Organization Affairs Consultation Center.
This is a powerful argument in Asia, where many countries are not only big customers of China but also its competitors. Last week, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in a meeting in Manila, agreed to strengthen product standards by increasing communication.
The food-safety conflicts in Asia provide a window into how big a role science, or standards, play in trade politics.
“When a government starts banning things for health reasons — particularly for chemicals — you must always question whether there might be a trade issue involved. So the government can legitimately ban something, but in fact their motivation may be with trade,” said Desmond O’Toole, a member of Hong Kong’s expert committee on food safety and an adjunct professor of biology and chemistry at the City University of Hong Kong.
China’s recent conflicts with Southeast Asian countries began with the recall of White Rabbit milk candy in the Philippines in July. Sold in more than 40 countries, White Rabbit candy is one of China’s famous old brands, an honor that gives it special protection under Chinese law. In fact, when President Richard Nixon made his historic visit to China in 1972, he was offered White Rabbit candy by Premier Zhou Enlai.
When Weng Mao, general manager of Guan Sheng Yuan, based in Shanghai, which makes the candy, heard about the recall, he said he couldn’t believe it. Weng said that the products must be counterfeit and that the Philippines was damaging the brand by making false accusations. He threatened to sue.
Weng said in an interview he has not filed a suit, yet, and “if the Philippines takes corrective action, we will forgive them.”
Days after the Philippines announced the problem, the Chinese government enacted its own recall of banana chips from the Philippines, saying they contained high levels of sulfur dioxide, which is used as a preservative but can be toxic at high levels. China dispatched representatives all over Asia to talk to food inspectors in other countries.
Malaysia, Singapore, India and other countries also investigated White Rabbit candy, but after seeing a report from a third-party testing service that inspected the candy at the manufacturing plants, they kept the candy in stores.
The Philippines, however, says it is still not convinced the candy is safe.
Joshua Ramos, deputy director of the Philippines Bureau of Food and Drug, said the countries have had at least three face-to-face meetings and numerous phone calls regarding the recall of White Rabbit milk candy that appeared to be contaminated with formaldehyde. He said the Philippines was asked to verify and then again to re-verify its findings and submit copies of its laboratory tests to China.
He says the defamation charges are unfounded.
“We’re not damaging their reputation,” Ramos said. “We’re just saying we have found formaldehyde in this product bearing the labels that they produce. We are not saying they deliberately used that chemical.”
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, Husniah also felt it best that Jakarta conduct its own tests on White Rabbit. They found formaldehyde, she said, so they pulled the candy off the shelves and issued a public warning.
Tensions flared during the Aug. 7 discussions in Jakarta between Husniah and Li Haiqing, a deputy director at China’s Administration of Quality Supervision and Inspection, one of the lead agencies responsible with food exports. A spokeswoman at the administration said Li was not available for comment, and she did not respond to questions faxed to her as she requested.
When Husniah, a physician who is head of the National Agency of Drug and Food Control, asked for a list of products that China had recalled domestically, surmising that many of those products had likely made it illegally to Indonesia, the Chinese declined. Husniah said she was told: “Don’t worry. We don’t permit substandard or hazardous products to be exported.”
Shortly before the meeting, China had announced a ban on Indonesian seafood. Husniah said she accused the Chinese of taking retaliatory trade actions. “You banned our seafood because of our public warning about your products,” she said. She said Chinese officials denied this was the case.
At one point, Husniah remembers that she said in exasperation, “Are we sitting together to solve problems or to blame each other?”
Husniah refused the Chinese officials’ request to recommend new standards in accordance with Chinese law, and the Indonesian government is continuing its testing of Chinese products. But it is holding off from issuing any more public alerts. The idea, Husniah said, is “we cool it down first,” until the anger on both sides subsides.
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