Who's Afraid of Tainted Milk from China?

Our new government has been gradually warming cross-strait relations via a policy of opening doors and extending goodwill to China. But many Taiwanese would not be at all unhappy to see these efforts derailed by the milk scandal.

On September 12, news of a scandal broke in China-milk powder manufactured by the Sanlu Group of Hebei had been found to be contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine. Sanlu's tainted dairy products had also been exported to 25 nations, including Taiwan.

Taiwanese attitudes toward milk changed overnight. Sales plummeted not just for infant formulas and milk powder, but for virtually everything containing milk or dairy extracts: instant coffees, teas, cereals... even chocolates and pastries. Local manufacturers estimated potential losses from the product recall ordered by the Department of Health at nearly NT$10 billion. Premier Liu Chao-shiuan ordered a ban on imports of contaminated milk powder and publicly demanded that Sanlu apologize.

Melamine is an industrial chemical commonly used in plastics. Hydrolysis during its production also creates cyanuric acid. When the two bind, they form melamine cyanurate, an insoluble compound that over time can cause kidney and bladder stones. These can be fatal, and infants dependent upon formula are at especially high risk.

To date, the tainted milk has been cited in the deaths of four Chinese infants, has led to at least 14,000 children being hospitalized, and has sickened more than 50,000 people.

In the mainland, Li Changjiang took responsibility for the failure of quality control and the poor response to the crisis by stepping down as head of China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection, and Quarantine. Wu Xianguo, the Communist Party chief in the Hebei city of Shijiazhuang, was also removed from his post.

In Taiwan, Lin Fang-yue was labeled a "tainted-milk murderer" and forced to resign as head of the DOH after just 130 days in post when he recommended his agency follow Hong Kong's example and relax limits on melamine concentrations from zero to 2.5 parts per million. Former presidential vice secretary-general Yeh Chin-chuan, a hero in the fight against SARS, replaced Lin at the DOH and quickly reinstated the zero standard.

Nonetheless, the public outcry has persisted, and the pan-green camp used the scandal as a pretext for harassing and jostling the visiting ARATS vice director Zhang Mingqiang. No longer purely a question of food safety, the issue has now spilled over into the political arena via ruling-opposition party conflict and the cross-strait reconciliation effort.

While we can perhaps ignore the political grandstanding, the public needs leaders on both sides of the strait to seriously address the loss of confidence in Chinese-made goods and to assuage their doubts about the government's ability to handle a crisis.

The Taiwanese public has seen report after report about dangerous Chinese food exports: counterfeit alcoholic beverages, tainted fish, tainted crab, tainted mushrooms, tainted dumplings, the ongoing milk scandal, and lately even melamine-tainted ammonium bicarbonate (a food raising agent). And these are only the cases that have been discovered. No one knows how many other tainted products have slipped unnoticed into the bellies of consumers.

The draft Melamine Compensation Act, an effort to provide a measure of justice, has gone to its second reading in the Legislative Yuan. If it becomes law, Taiwanese businesses harmed by the scandal will be exempted from business taxes on their September and October earnings and will be eligible to receive NT$500,000 or more in compensation.

Tainted milk isn't simply a food issue. If a government cannot provide its people with food that is safe to eat, how will it win their confidence and support? Similarly, our government has embarked on a course of cross-strait reconciliation and a "modus vivendi" approach that has led it to show mainland China every kind of goodwill. But if the mainland authorities are lax or corrupt, and their manufacturers fail to respect even the most basic business ethics, how can the Taiwanese public possibly feel comfortable about dealing with China?

As the China Times, the United Daily News, and other major media outlets have worried, poor handling of the situation could shake cross-strait relations to their roots. Leaders on both sides of the strait cannot be cavalier about the crisis.

Responding to these concerns in his 10 October National Day speech, President Ma Ying-jeou said Taiwan would strengthen food safety controls and would not allow fear of food to choke off other cross-strait exchanges. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao also made an effort to salvage China's international reputation by promising that in the future all Chinese exports, especially food products, would meet international standards and those of importing nations.

After using the Beijing Olympics to heighten global awareness of its progress in recent years, China saw its efforts completely undermined by the milk scandal. If Chinese manufacturers continue to disregard business ethics, focusing only on cost-cutting and profits, they will undo all the achievements of 30 years of liberalization and reform.

In The World Is Flat, Thomas Freidman wrote that every choice a consumer makes expresses support for an entire system of values, that every purchase is a vote of sorts. By that reasoning, buying Chinese goods represents a vote of confidence in China, an expectation that the Chinese government will remember the lessons of the milk scandal, that it will not abuse its status as a major nation, and that our new government's hard work in support of cross-strait exchanges has not been in vain.