To comment on the tangent here: there's a recent NY Times article a few weeks ago that listed India and Mexico 1st and 2nd ahead of China for imports that failed standards upon arrival and being returned. I can't remember the details, and it's difficult to google said article. As for hacking, everyone hacks and spies on each other. It's so incredibly naive to think it doesn't happen. Obviously our resources will be more focused on countries considered to be a threat politically or economically. The point is if the U.S. decides to make this a public outcry we better be ready to receive the same from China which will be put on a global level for all to see. I don't think there's much benefit in this.
Not that difficult if you know the right keywords to google, and the said New York Times article was already posted in this thread on previous page. To point a factual error in your post and be fair, in terms of number of failed shipments coming into the US from June '06 to July '07, Mexico was the number one importer, India was a close 2nd on the list (with China being the distant 3rd ). So China is knowingly sending US contaminated or dangerous products, mmmkay, but you still have not answered my question, which is, how do we know India is NOT knowingly dumping bug-infested foods into US? Hey, China threat alarmist, in the same London FT article, it says, "John Hamre, a Clinton-era deputy defence secretary involved with cyber security, said that while he had no knowledge of the June attack, criminal groups sometimes masked cyber attacks to make it appear they came from government computers in a particular country." We know India has no shortage of internet high tech wizkids. Has it not occurred to you some of them may have actually pulled the prank, considering the fact India is almost edging Mexico in leading contaminated food product bombardment on the US?
I stand corrected. I did read that brief post thinking it was something else not involving the FDA, but after checking the link and the whole article it's probably the same thing.
Actually, it was CHinese chocolates that had worms in them. I don't see how you can explain that putting lead paint into products was an accident. Or Anti-freeze into toothpaste or dog food. India didn't kill of 30,000 pets. Food items are going to be rejected at a higher rate then manufactured products, that's why Mexico and India are higher. What's disturbing is that China is sending over food products that are deadly and also the manufactured products are deadly as well. There's no defense to that. As for hacking, it's not acceptable to attack another system with the intent of taking down. That's not spying, it's warfare. And you can try to blame India for the attack but c'mon...why do you have to worship China as the perfect angel and say everything else is just other countries out to get China. All I am asking for is to see China clean up it's act - literally. I think it's reasonable to ask that China not send products to me that can result in my death, poison children, or kill pets. And I don't think it's acceptable that China is launching cyber attacks to take down our military communication - what's that about? That's down right scary....you're trying to make it light that it's just spying, but it's not. And now you are trying to make CHina look good by attacking India as a way to deflect away from the problems of China. Nice try.
as long as we're all about pointing out factual errors and being fair, please note the correction that the New York times made to that article that you posted: Number of failed/refused shipments coming into the US between June '06 to July '07: China: 1,901 (it appears that China is a hotbed of "salmonella caused diseases" as well, considering that of those 1901 rejected shipments, 331 contained seafood) India: 1,782 Mexico: 1,560
I am sure he has just learned it from you on how to deflect away from the topic of computer hacking after so many people have exposed how naive you are on page 2. Talking about hypocrisy.
NewYorker: Allies don't spy on allies. Poster A: You are a fool. Poster B: You are naive. Poster C: You had better rethink on that one. NewYorker: Alright, now let's talk about the lead products instead.
The chocolate worm story is interesting. You'd think stuff like that would be all over the internet on many Chinese language sites, especially those banned in PRC, but heck no. I've yet read a single news flash of this "incident." Considering Reuters, the British news agency which has been exposed to publish many sub-journalism standard articles on PRC, is the only one reporting it, I bet that more likely than not the said story doesn't hold water. There is no question that China has its share of product safety issues -- no Chinese is denying that. The question is how this is being viewed/reported/discussed in the grand scheme of things. Like India, China is still a developing country. Many of its products have not quite caught up the (safety) standards of those in the west. The lead-based paint, for instance, is probably not yet outlawed and has probably still been used by many manufacturers in China. However, as a much developed country, US didn't have EPA, Clear Water Act until 1972, and didn't outright ban the use of lead-based paint in consumer products until 1978, many decades after the discovery of its toxicity. Despite the laxnesses in rules and regulations, over 99% of Chinese agricultural exports met the standards of the countries in which those products are imported. In fact, as NYT reported, in terms of dollar value, China exports 12 times more merchandises than India to the US while being rejected only 6% more in total number of shipments. This means, on average, Indian foods are at least 10 times unsafer than those from China, assuming the prices of the agriculture products are roughly in the same ballpark. While the motive of India to poison US consumers is still unclear, you shall not try to downplay the threat posed by India. Look NewYorker, I can be just as rhetorical and inflammatory by playing the same game you have been playing. Heck, I can even point out the recent anti-terrorism development in UK, in which several Indian-born medical professionals were arrest on charges of terrorist activities, to "demonstrate" how India is covertly in cahoots with Al Qaeda to undermine US' WOT by attacking the most staunching ally of the US, Great Britain. It should be a fun game, no?
No, the honor of hotbed of salmonella-caused diseases still belongs to India. The refused Chinese seafood shipments have nothing to do with salmonella infestation, they were related to the antibiotics that are no longer used in the US. The updated New York Times article made no correction on attributing salmonella problem to Indian food products. Thanks for the numbers, though. So China has marginally more shipments rejected by FDA than those from India (1901 vs 1782), but as I replied to NewYorker, there is more to this pair of numbers. As it turned out, "China sends more products into the United States than any of those countries, at least in terms of the dollar value. In 2006, for instance, China shipped $288 billion in merchandise to the United States, compared with $198 billion from Mexico; $22 billion from India; and $5.3 billion from the Dominican Republic, records show." You see, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how much more dangerous imported Indian foods on the frequency/rate scale.
What you are trying to do is bad mouth another nation with by twisting the facts to depend deplorable behavior by CHina. Truly a rotten approach as opposed to just fessing up. First of all, the FDA rejects quite a bit off food from both China and India (more from China)....but let's look at something obvious. WE're talking about foods here. Just foods. You fail to talk about chinese goods, 20% of which are defective or lacking in some way. By the way, that's by Chinese officials own admission. The FDA doesn't regulate or reject lead painted toys or dangerous items. All that stuff coming in from China goes right through - 20% of it is substandard. That's insane. Now, you can try to say that since Indian black pepper is stopped that India is bad, well, ya know, at least it's being stopped. I'm all for the FDA forcing India to clean up it's act. Especially since I eat Indian spices imported from India. The Indian gov't better make sure it improves the quality. But you can't say the same for China, instead, you have try to defend it. Truly sickening.
Thanks. It's all right. I'm mainly interested in knowing the source of the figure. It seems it's a work of the media. China's pollution problem is worse than the USA, there's no doubt about it. So you know about how many people in China die each year from pollution but you don't know about the same type of figure on Americans. Maybe it's because the USA media is not so interested in exposing domestic problems in terms of pollution and food safety? I mean, if the USA media is capable of conducting research to tell such a figure of China, a country far away, why doesn't it shed some light on the same thing in USA? you know, with the pollution and unsafe food. Who can say that the problem in USA is so miniscule that it doesn't worth mentioning without providing proof? The unusual interest in exposing China and little interest in expose the domestic problems is just odd to me. I welcome scrutiny regardless of the origin of countries, it works well for you and me. After all, we live in a world in which big companies influence legislation for commercial profits without regard to consumer health(see all the cigarettes manufacturers).
Panda, the last thing I'm interested in is defending NewYorker about anything, but your post is WAY off base. The States has had countless newspaper articles, magazine articles, etc., over the last several decades, exposing just what you are saying we don't expose. Why do you think we have made progress in the area? Because American companies just want to clean things up? You've got to be kidding! Don't believe me? Do a google search. And if you like, you can start with Upton Sinclair. D&D. Impeach Bush and Cheney, like, yesterday.
it's not american propaganda to make the us problems seem small. the u.s. media has been made more corporate, but it's not a tool of gov't. there's plenty of reports and articles done on u.s. issues. but here's the link: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/25/asia/26china.php?page=4 and here's a quote: I mean, it's no wonder China is exporting so many unsafe products, the industry has gone out of control and it's polluting the country like crazy. only 1% of China's city dwellers breath air considered safe by either U.S. or European standards. Think about that. And believe me, when things go wrong here, the media makes big noise about it. Contaminated spinich with E Coli - nobody ate spinich for a month. There's a big push here in the states against using pesticides. And lots of people are even stopping to drink milk. Anti-smoking has never been bigger or in vogue, and you just have to look at the whole foods explosion. The media is constantly looking for a story - and when it can't find one, it will find one for sure. But China is of great interest to Americans because we know it's a rising power, and it's getting more and more attention because of hosting the Olympics next year. So yeah, the whole world will scrutinize China now. It's a growing behemeth, the most populous nation in the world, and perhaps the world's future superpower, greater than even the U.S. Our day will come, and I would not bet against China. So yeah, we're looking at China, everyone is. It's of immense interest amongst businesses here as well as people lick their lips at the growing buying power of a billion people. But it seems we should be exporting gas masks to you guys judging from the pollution levels. I mean, NYC isn't fresh air by any means, but compared to Beijing, it might as well be pure oxygen.
You are linking unsafe products with industry growth, which doesn't make too much sense to me. I mean, yes, more volumes of products makes for more pollution and wastes, but industry growth doesn't neccessary lead to unsafe products. The reason for air pollution in the cities aren't industries, some of them are, like the Dongguan city in Guangdong. but not the majority. It is because high population concentration and resulted fossil burning for heating and cooking, also, a big part of it is due to the rapid growth of individually owned automobiles. Some cities are planning to auction license plates to hold down the growth of vehicles. When millions of people live in a congested area with too many cars, the air becomes polluted. Pollution in cities are mainly due to the population and automobile congestion, IMO. It would be a lot better if the media put things in perspective in USA. Here we have the US media reporting the number of deaths from pollution in China only. I have two issues with it, first, it doesn't take proportion into account, considering China's 1.3 billion population. Second, the USA's corresponding data is nowhere to be found in the link, or I doubt, that it's easy to be found elsewhere. I would think that the ratio between the deaths and total population of China, in comparison to that of the USA, as a result of pollution, would be far more indictive to the seriousness of the pollution problems. From my standpoint, I want you guys to scrutinize China's products because it forces the government to improve the quality of them, as long as, that such scrutinization is a fair game. As for China's power in the future, I think we need to fit in the world without losing our own identity and direction, to achieve a balance between our own interest and that of the world. Speaking of the Olympics, don't let Beijing's air quality scare you off. It's not good but I lived there for months and came out unscathed. Yeah Beijing is bad, but it's not representative to the air in other cities, I haven't been to NYC(what a shame considering I lived in the USA for years) so I can't comment on that.
Here's the comparison: China Air Pollution Deaths 656,000 Population 1,320,108,000 Mortality Rate 0.050% India Air Pollution Deaths 527,700 Population 1,169,016,000 Mortality Rate 0.045% U.S. Air Pollution Deaths 41,200 Population 302,763,469 Mortality Rate 0.014% http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070709-china-pollution.html I think this shows that China is a bit higher than India, and about 3-4 times higher than the U.S.
Thanks, I agree to the pollution in China is worse than the USA, no doubt about it. It seems India and China's numbers are about even, and it should be noted that both countries' medical resources don't come up to the USA's by miles.
