Perspective                                                 

People in USA are being advised to discard all toothpastes that are made in china after a poisonous antifreeze compound was found in them. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of U.S.A. warned that the Chinese products had a “low but meaningful risk of toxicity and injury” to children and people with kidney or liver disease. The U.S was the 7^th country at that time to find the toxic pastes within its borders. The shocking thing was that the compound was not found on the labels but after FDA started to analyze the products¹. Even before this simple product ban the European Union had identified 924 products in the previous year from unsafe lighters to wobbly strollers to short-circuiting kettles as too dangerous to be sold in its 27 member nations²

The story against China goes way back than these recent scuffles. In 2003 the Bush administration had imposed a two-year ban on imports from Chinese arms maker NORINCO (China North Industries). Although the move was aimed at removing illegal guns from the US streets but what went unnoticed was the frustration by retail giants like Wal-MART & K-Mart. NORINCO besides making ballistic missiles, artillery, machine guns, and tanks is a producer of common items such as tools, toys, bikes and ceramics etc. The low rates of their products were the driving force behind their rapid expansion. Everyone knew where these were coming from – the sweat shops where else. To increase their margins some Chinese producers then started to make spurious goods hoping that they wouldn’t be noticed, But they were; And the US Govt. hit hard, banning toys, pet food and more recently seafood. Not being bogged down by big brother China has retaliated by banning meat imports of six US companies. China has sent back U.S. shipments of dried apricots, raisins and a sugar-free drink mix that regulators said had too much red dye.

Now whether the blame game is being played for some political reasons or not, this might start a new trade dispute that may affect the entire global commerce and have consequences on other nations not directly involved. For example the commerce may see Asia as a whole different entity as regards to the quality of their goods. The ChinaLawBlog³ draws the reader’s attention to the fact that food shipments from India have been stopped more times than china in the past year. The lawyers of the blog try to downplay the ‘blame china for every bad thing’ act by the western economies. For instance they claim that the data maintained by the FDA shows that shipments of produce from Dominican Republic and Denmark were refused more times than China’s shipments. If the facts are considered then India is itself in a serious situation.  

India does not match up to China as far as the trade volumes are considered but has high rejection rate. After already facing the wrath of the FDA over the Ayurvedic & the herbal product issue and from Russia over the Rice ban due to their toxicity, any further allegations may damage India’s reputation as a reliable supplier of food products since it’s an agrarian economy primarily.

While Food safety issues are often used for political means in times of strained trade relations , they usually don’t develop into serious implications as trade is a bilateral thing and important for all the parties. However in this global scenario it has become important to know who your trade partners are, even if that means going to a new location to physically identify them. Governments in the developing nations like India need to reinforce their quality standards strictly if they want a progressive nation. Afterall we never want to see a ‘NOT made in India’ label anytime soon.

References :

1. New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/us/02toothpaste.html ex=1185508800&en=30fc6f9e022c0e41&ei=5070

2. http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=117573