Golly, we didn't mean... you know... don't they have prisons?

Growing complaints of shoddy and unsafe products coming out of China led to a quick response by Beijing leaders... It appears that Chinese leadership concerns regarding protectionist US policy are dead serious.

More quality control of China food imports needed in both U.S., China
by Jing Zhou
Jun 27, 2007

Among some of Chicago’s food markets, there are complaints of inadequate U.S. governmental and technical support to secure the quality of food imported from China.

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration wouldn’t care about our warehouse unless there’s a customer complaint,” said Judy Yu, accountant for Richwell Market, a food market in Chicago’s Chinatown. Otherwise, she said inspections occur about every two months.

Yu and other retailers say safeguards are important because they are the last links in the international food chain between potentially dangerous products and consumers.

Whole Grain Fresh Market in Westmont, Ill. said they depend solely on licensed food importers from New York for quality control.

Both markets said the recent food scandals caused a slight sales drop, mostly from non-Asian customers.

China Quick to Execute Drug Official
By JOSEPH KAHN
Published: July 11, 2007

BEIJING, July 10 — China executed its former top food and drug regulator on Tuesday for taking bribes to approve untested medicine, as the Beijing leadership scrambled to show that it was serious about improving the safety of Chinese products.

The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court carried out the death sentence against Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, the former head of the State Food and Drug Administration, shortly after the country’s Supreme Court rejected his final appeal.

Mr. Zheng, who had appealed his May 29 sentence on the grounds that it was too severe and that he had confessed to the bribery charges against him, became the first ministerial-level official put to death since 2000 and the fourth since China opened its doors to the outside world nearly 30 years ago.