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The Olympics are just around the corner, and all eyes are on this year’s host. Scrutiny of the Chinese government is nothing new of course: ever since Napoleon’s warnings of the sleeping giant, the West has looked with cautious anticipation to China’s entrance onto the world economic stage — with some skepticism. And while many might wish to stay at arm’s length from the new kid on the block, the fact is, the concept of Western isolationism and its accompanying insular policies is all but passé. Such ideas are a long time overtaken by the simple reality of economic interdependence with the Orient that has come along with China’s rapid economic expansion. Nowhere is this more acutely discernible than in American and European dependence on Chinese food imports; and the stakes are especially high, given that these commodities carry such an elevated level of risk for consumers.

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Video - Asian Exports to the US - click to play Chinese exports to the United States have increased to the tune of $211 billion in 2004, from $3.38 billion in 1984. By comparison, Japanese exports to the US already amounted to as much as $60.3 billion in 1984, and steadily grew, albeit at a slower pace, to $133 billion in 2004. [data - United Nations]

It is, of course, greatly in the Chinese government’s interests to maintain an impression that all is under control; and certainly they have made serious progress in regulating food production and packaging over the past few years. Nevertheless, the relentless ballooning of the Chinese economy has exposed a regulatory system that simply cannot keep up with the demands of growth. China’s agricultural exports to the US alone swelled to over $2.26 billion in 2006, almost twenty times the figure from 1980 ($133 million).¹ And given that America’s reliance on imported food has grown, from 1995 to today, by more than 30%, with imports accounting for as much as 15% of total food consumption already in 2005, it is a very sobering reality that Chinese regulations may indeed directly affect the safety of what Americans eat on a daily basis.²

Much of the difficulty the Chinese face in regulating their food production stems from the actual use and administration of arable

Image - Arable Land per Population - click to enlarge Although China has the third most arable land of all countries, when the statistic is considered per capita (that is, when it is divided by population), the Chinese only rank slightly above the global average. [data - Central Intelligence Agency]

farmland. Traditionally, China’s constitution decrees that rural land be owned by “collectives,” but the reality is that peasants who actually work the land are able to transfer their de facto ownership to rabid land developers even without proper proceedings.³ On a country-wide scale, these practices are creating an inexorable shrinking of China’s fertile land supply — more than 10% of China’s farming land, near 10 million hectares, has been ruined in the past fifteen years as a result.⁴ And farmers that do continue to work the land do not self-regulate any better: the grave lack of knowledge of correct use of antibiotics and other chemicals is further complicated by the dominance of small-time traders that control Chinese marketing of food products. As the products are sold wholesale to traders, directly for cash and without any exchange of documentation, the supply is intermingled and its sources become completely untraceable, even if a particular item is subsequently identified as a health hazard.

Responding swiftly and incisively to food safety issues has been a major goal for the Chinese government for several years already, even if not an always achieved one. Imposing regulations through central authority is greatly complicated by the fact that so little infrastructure already exists to separate lawmakers from small-time merchants and farmers; the volume alone of individual cases to be handled is daunting, and the rewards limited for any particular investigation. In the first 5 months of last year, for example, over 24,000 illegal land use cases were processed, involving over 14,000 hectares of land⁵ … and yet this doesn’t even account for one percent of Chinese farmland in question. But the “heat” from outside authorities, particularly European and American, is only getting more and more intense as, for instance, the Olympics approach, and many fear the potential of an incident with sick athletes.⁶ How realistic are these fears? Talking about the Olympians’ food source, Vice Minister of Agriculture Gao Hongbin said, “…undoubtedly it will come from China.” But even he admits there is a ways to go.⁷ “There is still a gap between China’s standards and (those) in other countries… I will not rule out the possibility that some food could be imported from abroad.”

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Video - World: Total Arable Land (square km.) - click to play China is among the world leaders in total arable land, ranking third overall. [data - CIESIN - Center for International Earth Science Information Network]

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Video - Asia: Total Exports of Natural Products - click to play Chinese natural products exports totaled $30 billion in 2002 alone. [data - UNCTAD - the United Nations Conference on Trade And Development]

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News Sources

1. . “China Food Fears Go From Pets to People” by Ariana Eunjung Cha, April 25, 2007.
2. Market Watch. “China Food Safety Woes Show U.S. Vulnerability” by Emre Peker, last updated August 29, 2007.
3. . “This Land is My Land” from The Economist print edition, February 14, 2008.
4. Terra Daily. “Farmland Across China At Risk From Pollution” by the Terra Daily staff writers, April 9, 2007.
5. China.org. “Four Local Governments Ordered to Protect Arable Land” from the Xinhua News Agency, July 13, 2007.
6. BBC News. “China Takes No Chances on Olympic Food” by Michael Bristow, last updated February 18, 2008.
7. Reuters. “China Food Safety Improving But Challenges ‘Arduous’” by Lindsay Beck with reporting by Lucy Hornby and others, January 7, 2008.

Other similar articles

8. .
9. China Daily.

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The UUorld Gallery has received several additions recently.

Of note:

• Regional industry trends in the United States includes a series of visualizations showing textile, automotive, rail, mining, and education industries across the country for the past ten years.
• State incomes from manufacturing, another US statistic showing waves of growth and recession.
• Global Internet demonstrates the dramatic rise of Internet users in Europe, US, China, and India.