Pope calls on 12 million Catholics in China to unite BY NICOLE WINFIELD The Associated Press
VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI made his most signifi cant attempt to unite China’s 12 million Catholics Saturday, urging the underground faithful and followers of the state-run church to overcome decades of animosity and distrust. Benedict lamented the lack of religious freedoms in China and called the government-sanctioned church “incompatible” with Catholic doctrine for appointing bishops without Vatican approval. But he also said he hoped the Vatican could reach an agreement with Beijing authorities on nominations. In an unprecedented gesture, Benedict revoked 1988 Vatican regulations that had called for limiting contact with China’s offi - cial clergy and excommunicating bishops consecrated without the pope’s consent. The pope’s comments came in a letter translated into five languages — including Mandarin in both traditional and simplified characters — a sign the Vatican wanted it widely read. It issued two accompanying documents highlighting key points and posted the letter on the Vatican’s Web site. However, Liu Bainian, the vice chairman of the state-run China Patriotic Catholic Association, said Saturday he had not seen the letter and that the church had no immediate plans to read it out to the faithful or distribute it. Qin Gang, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, said China would “continue to have a frank, constructive dialogue with the Vatican in order to resolve differences between the two sides.” China forced its Roman Catholics to cut ties with the Vatican in 1951, shortly after the officially atheist Communist Party took power. Worship is allowed only in government-controlled churches, which recognize the pope as a spiritual leader but appoint their own priests and bishops. Millions of Chinese, however, belong to unofficial congregations that are not registered with the authorities and have remained loyal to Rome. Several times in the letter, Benedict praised the Catholics who had resisted pressure to join the offi cial church. But he also urged them to forgive and reconcile with followers of the state-run church for the sake of unity. “Indeed, the purification of memory, the pardoning of wrongdoers, the forgetting of injustices suffered and the loving restoration to serenity of troubled hearts ... can require moving beyond personal positions or viewpoints, born of painful or difficult experiences,” he wrote. Benedict referred repeatedly to the “Catholic Church in China” without distinguishing between the divisions. “He underlines the unity of the church, which is fundamental because with this affirmation reconciliation becomes possible,” said the Rev. Bernardo Cervellera, director of AsiaNews, a missionary news agency close to the Vatican. China’s Foreign Ministry called on the Vatican not to interfere in Beijing’s internal affairs in the name of religion. It also urged the Vatican to sever ties with rival Taiwan. The Vatican said it was prepared “at any time” to move its diplomatic representation from Taiwan — which split from China in 1949 — to Beijing when an agreement with the government is reached. The Cardinal Kung Foundation, a U.S.-based foundation that supports the underground church, said the clandestine priests “will follow the pope’s guidelines and instructions.” In an e-mail to The Associated Press, the foundation relayed what it said was the initial opinion of some underground clergy in China. “He truly respects and hopes for total, genuine religious freedom in China and views it as essential for the normalization of relations,” the clergy said. “We hope and pray that the Chinese government will understand these very important points.” Benedict cited the church law that calls for automatic excommunication of any bishop ordained by the official church without the consent of the pope. But he highlighted mitigating circumstances, saying clergy were often pressured to join the official church or face persecution, and he left it up to individual bishops to decide how to proceed. In another measure to eliminate divisions, Benedict also revoked special Vatican allowances for underground bishops trying to ordain new priests and perform other duties. The allowances had been granted because publicly celebrating the rites in traditional ways could have attracted attention and resulted in retaliation.
By ANITA CHANG, Associated Press Tuesday, July 3, 2007
BEIJING -- Chinese inspectors found excessive amounts of additives and preservatives in dozens of children's snacks and seized hundreds of bottles of fake human blood protein from hospitals, officials said Tuesday.
China's dismal health and safety record -- both within and outside its borders -- has increasingly come under the spotlight as its goods make their way to global markets. Major buyers like the United States, Japan, and the European Union have pushed Beijing to improve inspections.
China accused the media of hyping the problems.
"I think it would be better if the media would stop playing up this issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters.
"China has taken measures and enacted relevant legislation regarding inspection and monitoring of its food export process. China has been very responsible in this regard to ensure the good quality and safety of its exports," he said.
Inspectors in southwest China's Guangxi region found excessive additives and preservatives in nearly 40 percent of 100 children's snacks sampled during the second quarter of 2007, according to a report on China's central government Web site.
The snacks -- including soft drinks, candied fruits, gelatin desserts and some types of crackers -- were taken from 70 supermarkets, department stores and wholesale markets in seven cities in the region, it said.
Only 35 percent of gelatin desserts sampled met food standards, the report said, while two types of candied fruit contained 63 times the permitted amount of artificial sweetener.
The report did not say whether any snacks were recalled or if any manufacturers faced discipline. Calls to the Guangxi Industrial and Commercial bureau rang unanswered Tuesday.
Some 420 bottles of fake blood protein, albumin, were found at hospitals in Hubei province but none had been used to treat patients, Liu Jinai, an official with the inspection division of the provincial food and drug administration, said in a telephone interview. No deaths or illnesses were reported.
A shortage of albumin triggered a nationwide investigation in March into whether fakes were being sold.
A state media report last month centered on an inquiry in the northeastern province of Jilin, where 59 hospitals and pharmacies sold more than 2,000 bottles of counterfeit blood protein. One person died from use of the fakes, state media said.
Albumin is a primary protein in human plasma that is important in maintaining blood volume. It is used to treat conditions including shock, burns, liver failure and pancreatitis, and is needed by patients undergoing heart surgery.
Chinese authorities have struggled with recalls following the widespread sale of fake polio vaccines, vitamins and baby formula. Such incidents threaten both public health and faith in the government's ability to control crime and corruption and ensure safety of food and drug supplies.
In May, the country's former top drug regulator was sentenced to death for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths.
Fears that China's chronic food safety problems were going global surfaced earlier this year with the deaths of dogs and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine. U.S. authorities have also turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with leaded paint. Chinese-made toothpaste has also been banned by numerous countries in North and South America and Asia for containing diethylene glycol, or DEG, a toxic ingredient more commonly found in antifreeze.
Beijing has striven to appear active in cleaning up problem areas. Inspectors recently announced they had closed 180 food factories in China in the first half of this year and seized tons of candy, pickles, crackers and seafood tainted with formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax.
Stories of tainted food and other harmful exports from China have been appearing with alarming frequency of late, but at last it appears that the governments of both China and the United States have started to take the problem more seriously. They need to take it a lot more seriously, as it has become increasingly apparent that many Chinese businesses are unscrupulous as a matter of course. In the meantime, consumers need to pay more attention where their food comes from and think twice before buying the cheapest imports. Last winter’s contaminated dog food scandal was bad enough; now it’s the lives of humans being endangered by such items as poisonous toothpaste, toy trains with lead paint, tires without standardized tread-separation technology and, last week, farm-raised seafood laden with unhealthy amounts of antibiotics and food additives. None of the antibiotics or food additives identified in the Food and Drug Administration’s “import alert” on shrimp, catfish, eel, basa and dace were legal. Some were known carcinogens, while others are believed to increase resistance to antibiotics in humans. This is no small problem because 22 percent of our imported seafood — $1.8 billion worth last year — comes from China. And the failure rates for Chinese seafood inspections are dismally high: Of the 125 total seafood shipments refused by the FDA last year, 63 percent were Chinese. And yet the FDA has been doing fewer lab checks on imported seafood every year — from 0.88 percent of all shipments in 2003 to 0.59 percent last year. While it’s gratifying that the FDA isn’t afraid to send tainted products back, as it did last week, it’s clear from China’s dismal track record — with fish, other food and manufactured goods as well, that a much more watchful eye needs to be kept on its imports. After finding 23,000 food-safety infractions, the Chinese government did shut down 180 food manufacturers last week and acknowledged systemic problems in its food supply. But until it can demonstrate a sustained commitment to fixing its mess, both the U.S. government and U.S. consumers need to be careful.
China product recalls make consumers wary Country’s many small producers often sidestep food safety rules BY AUDRA ANG The Associated Press
XIAMEN, China — Perched on stools, four workers stuff freshly made noodles into plastic bags on the ground floor of the two-story Lin family home. A black-and-white mutt wanders lazily around their feet. Flies circle and land at will. Bags and basins cover almost every inch of a concrete floor that is partly damp, partly sticky with dough. Weak sunshine through the front door provides the only light in the sweltering room. These noodles aren’t exported; they’re only sold locally. But the hidden and unregulated nature of the Lins’ business — and countless others like it — helps to explain why China is caught in a food crisis. “We’re not allowed to apply for a permit to make food because this is our home, and we’re not supposed to work out of it,” says Lin, who squeezes out a living through his illegal noodle business, nestled in a dusty warren of workshops and residences on the edge of this port city of 1.6 million. “Of course we can’t meet national food safety standards,” his wife, Chen, says. They refuse to give their full names and fear talking to reporters. If anyone finds out, she adds, “my family will starve.” China faces an uphill battle as it rushes to fix its regulatory system amid a raft of disclosures of tainted exports to the U.S. and other major markets. “It is becoming increasingly urgent to raise the food safety standards to international levels,” the state-run China Daily newspaper editorialized last week. China’s reputation has collapsed in recent months since deadly toxins and dangerously high levels of chemicals were found in exports ranging from frozen fish to pet food. The discovery of diethylene glycol, a thickening agent in antifreeze, as a cheap sweetener in Chinese-made toothpaste has resulted in bans in Asia and North and South America. On Friday, U.S. regulators ordered a recall of three more Chinese-made products deemed dangerous to children: jewelry decorated with lead paint and building sets with small parts that pose a choking hazard. “It was bound to happen sooner or later,” said Michael F. Moriarty, vice president of A.T. Kearney, a Chicago-based consulting firm that recently put the cost of fi xing China’s food safety system at $100 billion. “China is a very entrepreneurial supply market, and enthusiasm sometimes outweighs prudence,” he said. The world’s most-populous country is awash in tiny momand-pop operations. Chinese authorities announced last month that they had closed 180 food factories since December after inspectors found formaldehyde, illegal dyes and industrial wax being used to make candy, pickles, crackers and seafood. All had fewer than 10 employees. Another regulating agency said it shut 152,000 unlicensed food producers and retailers last year for making and selling fake and lowquality products. But new ones keep popping up. About three-quarters of the country’s million or so registered foodprocessing plants are small and privately owned, according to the China Daily. That doesn’t include the unregistered ones. The most distinguishing feature of China’s central food-safety regulatory system is that there isn’t one. Responsibility is split among at least six agencies, including those that handle health, agriculture and commerce. The lines of authority are ill-defined, and different bodies oversee different laws. “Things fall through,” said Philippa Kelly, a Beijing-based consultant who works with the Chinese government on food-safety issues. BRIBERY RAMPANT Adding to the problem is rampant corruption. Officials can be bribed, and instead of shutting down illegal operations, many regulators just impose fines so they can collect more money in the future, Yang said. Chinese officials insist that exports are safe, though they have also called for stricter inspections and threatened violators with punishment in an apparent effort to reassure international customers. “Ninety-nine percent of food exported to the United States was up to safety standards over the past two years, which is a very high percentage,” says Li Yuanping, a Chinese official in charge of imported and exported food safety. Exports are subject to tighter specifications and multiple checks by authorities both in China and importing countries. But there are gaps, Yang said, because “regulatory agencies are often short on staff and funds in various localities and cannot fully police the manufacturers.” Some companies do it right. Amid the banana trees and industrial parks on the outskirts of Xiamen, Donghai Frozen Foods Co. Ltd. learned the price of failing to keep up with international standards. Two years ago, it had to discard 2,000 tons of “edamame,” a boiled soybean snack, because they did not meet new Japanese pesticide regulations that had come into effect after the soybeans were processed. Donghai, which has 300 foodhandling employees, ships 7,000 to 15,000 tons of frozen vegetables a year, mainly to Japan, the U.S. and Australia. On a recent afternoon, soy beans arrived by the sack from the company’s fields and were briskly unloaded by workers. In an airy building, two women in white face masks filled a huge metal steamer with crates full of cleaned pods. Others poured cooked beans into crates of ice for cooling. Anything that dropped on the floor was discarded. Guo Mingfeng, head of administrative affairs at the Taiwanese-owned company, said five to 10 self-inspections are performed during processing and more checks are done by both China and the importing country. “We know what happens from field to factory,” he said. “We have full control of the process.” Ultimately, experts say, the answer to China’s woes lies in efforts like Donghai’s. “Food or indeed any other product is not really improved by legislation or government control,” said John Chapple, who heads Sinoanalytica, a food analysis laboratory in the coastal Chinese city of Qingdao. “It is improved because the people producing it see the commercial benefit in making it happen.” The problem, he said is that despite exceptions such as Donghai, “it’s not happening in China yet.”
Imports nearly tripled over 5 years BY MARTIN CRUTSINGER The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — First it was pet food that sickened dogs and cats. Then came warnings about toothpaste, toy trains, car tires and several types of fi sh. The warnings had one thing in common — all of the products came from China. And that has people worried. “I’m scared to death. We are dependent on our government inspecting things,” said Joyce Simple, a church secretary, interviewed on a recent shopping trip to a Wal-Mart in Houston. “I would be careful of anything that came from China.” For Emily Pokora, a 24-year-old law school student in Phoenix, the problem hit even closer to home. Her cat got violently sick in March after eating tainted pet food. While the cat survived, the episode has shaken Pokora’s faith in the products she buys. “You go to the store and you can’t trust anymore that it’s not going to kill your animal or hurt you,” she said. The string of recalls has not gone unnoticed by shoppers, based on Associated Press interviews around the country. “Here we’re buying all of these products from China and they’re not adhering to our standards. It’s very disturbing,” said Joanne Metler, a community college teacher in Chicago. The food and safety issues are one more irritant in a trade relationship already strained by a ballooning U.S. deficit with China. That deficit hit $233 billion last year, the highest ever recorded with a single country. Imports of Chinese products into the United States totaled $288 billion while U.S. exports to China totaled $55 billion. That means for every $1 in goods the United States sells China, China sells the United States more than $5 in products. PRODUCTS FLOOD U.S. Chinese exports to the United States last year were nearly triple the level of just five years ago. The flood of Chinese products has increased since China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, a development that removed many of the remaining U.S. barriers. China is now the dominant supplier in a whole range of areas that go far beyond the athletic shoes and low-priced clothing that have traditionally displayed the Made in China label. Meanwhile, Cao Wenzhuang, a former department head at China’s drug regulation agency, was sentenced to death Friday on bribery charges. A department director at the State Food and Drug Administration, he was given the death sentence with a two-year reprieve on charges of accepting bribes and neglecting official duties, said his lawyer, Gao Zicheng. Cao, who oversaw the pharmaceutical registration department, had been secretary to Zheng Xiaoyu, the head of the agency, in the 1980s. Zheng was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths. In the pharmaceuticals department, Cao, 45, had the power to approve pharmaceutical production in China from 2002 to 2006. Of the toys sold in America, 80 percent are produced in China. China has become the top foreign source of tires in the United States with imports from all countries accounting for about 40 percent of the U.S. market last year. China is now the world’s leading supplier of seafood, shipping $1.9 billion worth of fish and shellfish to the United States last year, making it the third biggest foreign supplier in the U.S. market. DEFECTS ON INCREASE The increase in imports, however, has been accompanied by rising numbers of defects being discovered. The number of Chinese-made products that are being recalled in the United States has doubled in the last five years. Chinese imports accounted for more than 60 percent of the recalls announced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission this year and all of the 24 toy recalls. “The government of China is struggling to enforce the limited standards they have given the hundreds of thousands of Chinese firms in the export business,” said Nicholas Lardy, a China expert at the Peterson Institute, a Washington think tank. Chinese officials, while accusing the media of hyping the problems, have moved to show they are taking the concerns seriously. China announced last week that it had closed down 180 food manufacturers that were found to have used industrial chemicals and additives in their products. Donald Mays, senior director for product safety for Consumer Reports, said that many of the problems in China feature an element of unethical business practices. “Pressure from the importers to keep prices low can sometimes force the factories to cut corners,” Mays said. “That could mean leaving out a key safety feature.” One of the toy recalls involved 1.5 million of the popular Thomas & Friends trains because the toys had been coated at a factory in China with lead paint, which can damage brain cells, especially in children. The government ordered Foreign Tire Sales of Union, N.J., to recall 450,000 tires after the company notified regulators that some of the Chinese-made tires were missing a safety feature that keeps the tire tread from separating. The Chinese company denied the accusation. The pet food products had been found to contain Chinese wheat flour spiked with the chemical melamine to make it appear like more expensive, protein-rich ingredients, while the Chinese-made toothpaste was found to contain an ingredient often used in antifreeze. The Food and Drug Administration on June 28 placed restrictions on imports of Chinese shrimp, catfi sh, eel, basa and dace after finding residues of drugs the FDA does not allow in fi sh. And on Thursday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the recall of Chinesemade jewelry that the agency said could cause lead poisoning and a magnetic building set and plastic castles with small parts that CPSC said could choke children. CONGRESSIONAL CRITICS These problems have caught the attention of Congress, with members already highly critical of what they see as unfair trade practices they contend have pushed the defi - cits higher and contributed to the loss of 3 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 2000. “Tires, toys, toothpaste, pet food, fish — day after day and product after product, evidence of lax product regulation in China and inadequate import security in the U.S. mounts,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a frequent critic of China. “There’s no question that too many Chinese manufacturers and food producers put the bottom line ahead of safety,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. “The fact that every week we have to frantically pull Chinese goods off store shelves shows that our safeguards are failing.” Schumer called for creation of an import czar in the Commerce Department to better coordinate import inspections being done across a range of agencies. Critics also have complained about budget cuts during the Bush administration that have left various federal regulatory agencies stretched thin. But industry groups said much of the impetus for cracking down on abuses will come from individual companies concerned about protecting their reputation with the public. “Any time this happens, we go back to the table to see what we can do to improve our system,” said Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industry Association, which represents American toy companies. He said his group has been holding seminars in China for the past 11 years to teach companies there how to make toys more safely. PRICE LURES SHOPPERS Many shoppers in the AP interviews said they still planned to buy Chinese products because of the low prices. “There’s always a trade off — quality versus cost,” said Panneer Gangatharan, a 31-year-old software consultant in Pasadena, Calif. “I’m not sure how feasible it is for the United States to do anything about it, because the volume of products we’re buying from overseas is huge.” Economists say it is unlikely that the current uproar over Chinese goods will make a dent in the flood of imports from that country or America’s trade deficit with China. “Ultimately, the U.S. consumer is attracted to cheap Chinese goods. As long as they keep the price low, U.S. consumers will keep buying,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. Many analysts believe the U.S. deficit with China will keep rising until China starts heeding the Bush administration’s suggestions to overhaul its economy so growth is based more on domestic demand and less on exports. The administration, led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, is conducting high-level talks aimed at getting the Chinese government to make changes such as revaluing its currency to deal with the huge trade imbalance. But even if that occurs, analysts don’t expect any significant improvement for several years. “There is so much momentum behind our deficit with China that I don’t think it will turn around very quickly,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York.
We're our own worst enemy in this case, we like to save money then complain when we have no good manufacturing jobs because we buy our products from China and other cheap labor countries. We're starting to feel the pressure from having to depend on other countries for our needs and oil is the perfect example as it shows how we're at the mercy of the countries who have it.
BEIJING(AP) China executed the former head of its food and drug watchdog on Tuesday for approving untested medicine in exchange for cash, the strongest signal yet from Beijing that it is serious about tackling its product safety crisis.
The execution of former State Food and Drug Administration director Zheng Xiaoyu was confirmed by state television and the official Xinhua News Agency.
During Zheng's tenure from 1998 to 2005, his agency approved six medicines that turned out to be fake, and the drug-makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, according to previous state media reports. One antibiotic caused the deaths of at least 10 people.
"The few corrupt officials of the SFDA are the shame of the whole system and their scandals have revealed some very serious problems," agency spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said at a news conference held to highlight efforts to improve China's track record on food and drug safety.
Yan was asked to comment on Zheng's sentence and that of his subordinate, Cao Wenzhuang, a former director of SFDA's drug registration department who was last week sentenced to death for accepting bribes and dereliction of duty. Cao was given a two-year reprieve, a ruling which is usually commuted to life in prison if the convict is deemed to have reformed.
"We should seriously reflect and learn lessons from these cases. We should step up our efforts to ensure food and drug safety, which is what we are doing now and what we will do in the future," Yan said.
Zheng, 63, was convicted of taking cash and gifts worth $832,000 when he was in charge of the State Food and Drug Administration.
His death sentence was unusually heavy even for China, believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and indicates the leadership's determination to confront the country's dire product safety record.
The good ole USA may have it's problems but it's the best country in the world.
By our standards only. Other countries don't quite look at it the same!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
If other counrties look at the USA as if we're evil then why do so many of the other countries citizens keep coming here instead of staying in their own country. Could it be that they like all the freedoms that we have here?
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