A cooking oil contamination scandal in China that came to light earlier in July is highlighting long-standing struggles in the country to improve food safety measures.
The scandal, first revealed by state-backed media The Beijing News on July 2, involves two Chinese companies allegedly using fuel trucks to transport edible oil without any cleaning process between loads.
Authorities have announced a high-level investigation as public outrage continues.
“What’s most important is how to convince the people that similar incidents will never happen again,” read one comment that got thousands of likes on Chinese microblogging platform Weibo.
This is not the first time China has seen a nationwide scandal over .
In 2005 and 2015, Chinese media uncovered similar practices of improperly transporting food oil.
Another long-running food safety problem known to authorities in China is the use of “gutter oil,” which is cooking oil recycled from drains and grease traps, and cheaply sold off to restaurants.
John Kojiro Yasuda, an associate professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University who has researched Chinese regulatory reform, told DW that this latest episode indicates that China is still “at the beginning stages of transforming its food system,” despite decades of effort.
“It’s really a work in progress. This isn’t something that will be solved overnight,” he said.
Chemical tanks used for cooking oil
The investigative report revealed that two tanker trucks were loaded with cooking oil for delivery immediately after carrying chemical products, a cost-saving measure that the media said had become an “open secret” in the supply chain.
Companies implicated in the report include state transport and storage company Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group. Both companies have launched their own inspections in response to the allegations.
“The edible oil transport industry is effectively in a state of unregulated chaos,” an editor of The Beijing News said in a video report, attributing the problem to inadequate manufacturer oversight and a lack of mandatory transport standards.
While China has guidelines suggesting dedicated vehicles for vegetable oils, these are merely “recommended” standards that leave manufacturers room to , the editor reported.
Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told DW that switching between chemicals and cooking oil shipments is unacceptable, even if the tanks are cleaned between uses.
“You just don’t drink from the toilet even though it’s cleaned,” Huang said.
More enforcement needed
Huang added that simply strengthening regulations will not solve the underlying problem in China’s food safety system. China has some of the world’s strictest food safety laws.
The first versions were implemented in 2009, followed by several amendments over the years.
However, instead of just tightening the existing rules, researcher Huang said better enforcement is actually what is needed.
In 2018, launched an institutional reform that abolished the country’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and merged agencies in charge of food and drug products into a new authority directly subordinate to the State Council.
“That means the function of regulating food safety has been undermined,” Huang told DW. He added that the Chinese government should have given its FDA more power that was supposed to surpass the central ministry level.
Scholar Yasuda told DW other factors should also be considered given the complexity of China’s fragmented food market.
Apart from robust regulations and government oversight, he said it is critical to have “a fairly vigilant consumer base that can actively punish noncompliance among food safety suppliers.”
In addition, the modernization of farms is much needed as the sheer number of food producers and distributors is “overwhelming” even in modern-day China, Yasuda said.
“When you’re dealing with anywhere between 150 to 200 million farms. It’s very challenging to monitor from the ground level up,” Yasuda said.
Political pressure on Beijing?
The food safety office of China’s State Council launched an investigation last week amid public outcry, promising that those responsible for any malpractice “will be severely punished.”
In 2008, two businessmen convicted of producing and selling infant formula laced with the chemical melamine were sentenced to death, prompting the food safety law to be passed a year later.
China’s leader has also repeatedly vowed to tackle the country’s notorious food safety problems since he took office over a decade ago. In a 2013 speech, he warned that the Communist Party’s legitimacy would be questioned if it “cannot even do a good job in food safety.”
However, following the cooking oil scandal, Chinese media reported that an app allowing users to track trucks across the country was disabled. Beijing News reporter Han Futao, who first revealed the malpractice, was found to have his Weibo account deleted.
Although Beijing says it views food safety as a priority, Yasuda expressed doubt that it would be willing to “open the floodgates of empowering consumers and the media” to solve the problem.
Edited by: Wesley Rahn
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