Monday, September 22, 2008

Following the wave of infant sickness in China stemming from milk deliberately added with a hazardous chemical, as well as other similar products, there has been a lot of outrage, both domestic and international, over food quality in China. This Toronto Star piece talks about how this crisis is symptomatic of the "Two Chinas" which exist in that nation. This dual state of affairs, in which proud achievements such hosting a great Olympics and developing a space program is contradicted by tremendous problems on the domestic front such as widespread low food and product quality and significant environmental pollution. What makes it worse is the milk crisis has two dimensions, the first being the roles of the milk companies who processed and distributed these contaminated products, and the second being the government cover-up which prevented and then delayed the release of information on the sicknesses.