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Environmental Pollution 157 (2009) 1990–1992

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Environmental Pollution

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Commentary

Law enforcement is key to China’s food safety

Hong-Gang Ni, Hui Zeng*

The Key Laboratory for Environmental and Urban Sciences, Shenzhen Graduate School, Peking University, Shenzhen 518055, China

Law enforcement improves China’s food safety.

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 13 January 2009Received in revised form5 February 2009Accepted 8 February 2009

Keywords:LawChinaFood safety

* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: þ86 755 2603558E-mail address: zengh@szpku.edu.cn (H. Zeng).

0269-7491/$ – see front matter � 2009 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2009.02.002

Food Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China (Draft) (in Draft asof 20 April 2008, the law is designated as Draft hereafter) has been

The current economic growth of China is astonishing (Liu andDiamond, 2008), but other aspects associated with the scale andrapidity of this growth are not satisfactory. In recent years, the issueof China’s food safety has been a primary focus of the media athome and abroad due to the continual recurrence of food safetyscandals. Most recently, the ‘‘killer baby milk powder’’ incidentonce again frustrated the public’s confidence in China’s food safety(China Daily, 2008). The Sanlu group, one of the China’s largestmanufacturers of dairy products, has been the major focus of thisconcern with revelations that its milk-based food products werecontaminated with melamine. According to the Ministry of Health,at least six babies have died as a result of this contamination(Zhu, 2008). In addition, the number of cases of kidney stones inbabies who were fed by baby food contaminated with melaminehad risen to 290,000 by December 2008 and occurred in areasscattered across China (Zhu, 2008).

It has been perceived that a lack of laws and regulations in Chinamay be the main reason leading to the nearly out-of-controlproblems of food safety in the country (China Daily, 2005; AsianDevelopment Bank, 2007). However the current situation under-scores that the solution should not lie in the blind establishment ofnew ‘‘basic food laws’’ but should be provided by law enforcement.According to the white paper on China’s food safety issued by theInformation Office of the State Council, China now has a completelaw regime providing a sound legal foundation and a good regu-latory environment for guaranteeing food safety, improving foodquality and controlling food imports and exports (State CouncilInformation Office of the People’s Republic of China, 2007). The

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specific laws in this regard include the Product Quality Law, Stan-dardization Law, Metrology Law, etc. and amount to eleven laws intotal with specific administrative regulations totaling thirteen(State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China,2007). Besides these, there are still ten specific departmental rulesrelating to food production (State Council Information Office of thePeople’s Republic of China, 2007). If all types of food standards werecounted, there would be over 3000 laws, regulations, rules, andfood standards in China at present (Song, 2005). More recently, the

submitted to the National People’s Congress Standing Committeefor discussion after public comment (NPC, 2008). One of thebreakthroughs of the Draft is that it has established an account-ability system to which local government leaders must be subjectedin the event of a food scandal occurring in their prefecture(LawinfoChina, 2008). This means that the central government hasshifted its emphasis away from pure economic performance andnow weighs economic performance and food safety performancewith the same level of importance. The Draft stipulates that localgovernments at and above county level shall: take overall respon-sibility for the inspection and management of food safety in theirjurisdiction; lead and coordinate the inspection and managementof food safety in their jurisdiction; establish and hone food safetycoordination mechanisms for the inspection and management offood safety; take the leading and commanding role in dealing withfood safety emergencies; develop a food safety accountabilitysystem; and review and evaluate the performance of food safetyregulatory agencies (LawinfoChina, 2008). Meanwhile, the Draftalso stipulates the development of mandatory national food safetystandards. Moreover, it is significant that a surveillance andassessment system for food safety risks will be set up according tothe new law (LawinfoChina, 2008). This means that a food safetyearly-warning system will be established to avoid human healthdamage before unintended ‘‘human testing’’ occurs amongconsumers.

However, the situation of China’s food safety is very similar tothe trend in China’s environmental record. Although there are morethan 100 environmental laws and various regulations in China,environmental degradation has been continuing (Liu and Diamond,2008). In implementation of the food laws, China has focused ongovernment supervision and administrative punishment, but failed

H.-G. Ni, H. Zeng / Environmental Pollution 157 (2009) 1990–1992 1991

to address the ‘‘civil liability’’ of food product manufacturers.Meanwhile, previous food laws did not nail down specific foodsafety management mechanisms to avoid overlapping monitoringand inefficiency. Moreover, the absence of explicit legal bases toguarantee the food safety risk assessment to be completed byindependent scientists is another important issue. It is commend-able that China has established impressive food safety goals and hastried to improve food safety levels. With this background, China hasset up major projects with respect to food technology for the firsttime during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–10) (State Food and DrugAdministration, 2007). However, the series of uninterrupted andserious fake food cases have repeatedly eroded the trust ofconsumers. Although many specific solutions to the issue of China’sfood safety have been suggested, a key unresolved question is howto enforce China’s Food Safety Laws. We suggest reform of China’sfood safety management mechanism and establishment of a publicsupervision system.

1. Reforming the food safety management mechanism

China’s food safety supervision falls within various govern-mental bodies. This has dampened the efficiency of the supervisionefforts. These government departments include the State Food andDrug Administration (SFDA), Ministry of Agriculture (MOA),Ministry of Health (MOH), State General Administration of QualitySupervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), Ministry ofCommerce (MOC), State Administration of Industry and Commerce(SAIC), Ministry of Environmental Protection of the People’sRepublic of China (MEP), and others, and they are each responsiblefor different parts of food safety supervision according to relevantlaws or regulations. This multi-department inspection frameworkhas inherent flaws. On one hand, this system always creates blindspots during food safety supervision due to the ambiguity ofresponsibility of many government departments. On the otherhand, buck-passing among different government departmentsoften occurs due to the same blurring of lines of responsibility. Inpractice, the supervision system is a multistage managementsystem. Therefore, it is difficult for collaboration to be set up quicklybetween departments so that tracing the source of food contami-nation occurs as soon as possible. For example, in the Sanlu scandal,the MOA should be responsible for the original milk quality; thecourse of production should be inspected by the AQSIQ and MOH;and the marketing process should be the responsibility of the MOC,SAIC and the SFDA. If this situation is not reformed, it will continueto be difficult to obtain satisfactory results from China’s Food SafetyLaws. Hence, establishing a new, special, authoritative nationalorganization that harmonizes all relevant government bodiesunder the food safety guarantee could reduce conflict among themand enhance Food Safety Law performance.

Moreover, perfecting the existing food quality standards is a veryimportant basis of law enforcement. At the same time, China shouldalso set down scientific references for the standards and improvethe maneuverability of food safety standards in reference todeveloped countries’ food supervision systems. In the Food SafetyLaw enforcement process, food analysis data is very importantbecause it would provide key direct evidence once any food scandaloccurs. Therefore, any organizations that offer eningving tionatermshou relanalysis data should held absolute liability and account-ability. In addition, food safety supervision should be a part ofregular and routine inspection. Any enterprise engaged in foodproduction and processing should not be exempt from inspection.Ironically, Sanlu milk powder was an example of a product that hasbeen exempt from inspection. Thus, revising of out-of-date foodsafety standards, maintaining reliable data and regular inspectionsare highly significant for effective law enforcement.

2. Establishment of a public supervision system

The government of China should adopt a more open attitude tofood safety information. Any good law and supervision system willbe hampered without public education and accountability. In orderto enhance food laws, establishment of a food quality informationnetwork is necessary. Because the food product industry chain iscomplex and convoluted, the ability for consumers to obtain fulldisclosure about the origins of food they are purchasing is almostimpossible. Within the current situation, the food producer is privyto information on their food products, while the consumer remainsuninformed. Government has the responsibility to eliminate anyinformation asymmetries between the two parts. At the same time,government should improve food safety awareness via a range ofdifferent initiatives. Increasing the awareness of food safety issuesamong the public gives them supervisory rights so that they canpressure companies and governments at different levels to boostlaw enforcement and make it more effective.

In fact, public supervision is a power-sharing concept. This conceptmeans that the public and government supervise food safety together.If the new, special, authoritative national organization describedabove was established, this organization should also be the majortarget of public supervision. It should not be merely a body of the StateCouncil, but also other social interest groups could accept supervisionof the agencies. The enactment of new ‘‘Food Safety Laws’’ intoChinese food safety system is not intend to make up for the ‘‘FoodSanitation Law’’, ‘‘Product Quality Law’’, or the lack of regulations, butto create a new power-sharing concept in food safety supervision.This power-sharing concept could help the public urge government toestablish an early-warning system in food safety supervision.

3. Concluding remarks

Establishing a new special organization and power-sharing infood safety supervision will not be easily achieved. However thesesuggestions could provide an impetus to the improvement ofChina’s food safety levels and accreditation if they were adopted. Itis worth noting that the Chinese government has been positive inits attitude and determination to guarantee food safety. Forexample, China is showing a positive and more open attitude to therecent milk powder scandal. On September 16, 2008, the AQSIQordered a thorough investigation into all firms producing taintedmilk products, and released the findings of the national inspectionof milk products on September 17, 2008 (General Administration ofQuality Supervision Inspection and Quarantine of the People’sRepublic of China, 2008; Zhu and Ho, 2008). This is a good begin-ning for the establishment of a public supervision system in China.

In recent years, the Chinese government has done a lot of work oncomprehensive supervision of food safety and has accumulated richexperience in this area (Asian Development Bank, 2007) but a greatdeal of hard works is still to be done. Even in developed countries,between 20% and 30% of the population may be affected by food-bornedisease each year (Asian Development Bank, 2007). However thesituation in China is more serious (Asian Development Bank, 2007). Inaddition, China is a major player in the global trade in food. Withoutappropriate measures, exports of China’s agricultural products will beaffected and its farmers’ income will be seriously impacted. Therefore,assuring food safety is an important task for China in terms of botheconomic and social consequences of food safety.

Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the China Postdoctoral ScienceFoundation Fund Project (No. 20080440236), the National NaturalScience Foundation of China (No. 40830747) and Shenzhen Bureau

H.-G. Ni, H. Zeng / Environmental Pollution 157 (2009) 1990–19921992

of Science & Information of China. The authors are also grateful toDr. Daniel Z. Sui, Ms. Gina Lane and Mr. Laurence Cantrill for criticalreview and editing of the manuscript.

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