China: Active in Global Efforts

In recent months, reports about China'sfood safety have piled in US media. Someeven concluded that China was the countryto have most violated US food safety regula-tions.

As a matter of fact, products quality orfood safety is a global issue since each coun-try all over the world yields and consumesproducts and food. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization(WHO), announced that the WHO receives200 food safety reports from 193 WHO mem-ber countries each month, which indicates thatfood safety is an issue concerning not only acountry or a region but also the whole world.

According to reliable statistics, China haspaid much attention to food safety, and 90%of its food has been qualified, marking a jumpfrom 50% to 60% in the past 30 years.

Of course, China has already realized theproblems the country is facing as a developingcountry and has been making every effort fora better product quality and safety.

International cooperation is a must to solvethe food safety problem. For the moment, Chi-na is actively seeking useful means of interna-tional cooperation to ensure consumer goodssafety by strengthening the tie-up with relatedinternational organizations and also with theworld's major countries in production and con-sumption of consumer goods. The country isstriving to ensure that its export goods can im-mediately catch up with the change in safetystandards in export markets.

Recently, China and the U.S. reached ac-cord upon the basic framework of the memo-randum of understanding (MOU) concerningtheir cooperation in products safety like foodsafety. Previously, China welcomed visitors in-cluding officials responsible for products qual-ity and food safety from such regions as theEuropean Union (EU), Japan, and the United States. In the second half of this year, aseries of meetings will be held in suc-cession, for instance, the third session on Sino-US food safety, the second sessionon Sino-US consumer goods safety, theSino-ASEAN (the Assoeiatiun of South-east Asian Nations) quality inspectionministers meeting, the second session ofSino-European food and consumer goodssafety association committee, the Sino-Denish food safety meeting, and the sixthsession of Sino-European industrial prod-ucts safety and negotiation mechanism.

China has contributed a lot to theachievements in international food safetycooperation. As one of the world's largestfood importers and exporters, the countryhas spared no efforts in calling for andboosting international cooperation infood safety, and finally gained acceptationfrom western countries and the globalcommunity at large. China has tried itsbest in actively involving itself into theinternational cooperation mechanism,from which both the country itself and thewhole world will benefit much.

For China, international cooperationin food safety will help eliminate preju-dice of such countries as the U.S. againstChina. These countries will know wellthe great importance China has attachedto the food safety and quality problem,and China's faith, determination, and con-fidence in solving the problem thoroughly.

What's more important is that opendialogues, bilateral or multilateral coop-eration in food safety will definitely givea leg up to release the negative pressure,such as the emerging trade protectionism,the policialization of the trading issue dueto the domestic political demand in west-ern countries like the U.S.