China's top quality control chief urged foreign media to stick to the truth
in reporting during an interview with CCTV yesterday, a second time in a few
days for him to lash out at some foreign media exaggerating China's food safety
problems and stirring consumer panic.
Li Changjiang, minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision,
Inspection and Quarantine also stressed again that Chinese exports, especially
food exports, are absolutely well guaranteed in terms of safety.
His remark came after a Chinese rubber company was cleared of the accusation
of producing unsafe tires exported to the United States, which were previously
held responsible for a traffic accident that killed two in Pennsylvania last
August.
The US importer - Foreign Tyre Sales, Inc (FTS), which earlier blamed the
Chinese tires for the accident, said in the latest report released on July 2
that the Chinese-made tires involved in the accident far exceeded the US Federal
Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, and the van in the accident was equipped with
tires in two different sizes, three Chinese tires and one Michelin tyre.
The real cause of the fatal accident was the misuse of the tires, said Shen
Jinrong, the board chairman of Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber Co Ltd.
"It was irresponsible for some foreign media to blame the Chinese-made tires
without any analysis immediately after the accident happened," Li said during
the interview while commenting on the issue.
Due to the incident, the Chinese rubber company, which has been in the US
market for 20 years without such quality complaints, was ordered to recall a
total of 450,000 tires. The US hearing of the case is scheduled yesterday.
Li said recent Japanese reports claimed that Chinese-made boilers contained
excessive lead. However, tests done by three Japanese inspection organizations
showed that the lead contained in Chinese boilers was only about half of that in
Japanese ones.
Li continued to say that the Chinese government has always attached great
importance to quality control of products, especially food products and have
worked hard to ensure food safety.
He said the record shows that between 2004 and 2006, 99 or more than 99
percent of Chinese exports to the US were up to the quality standard, which is
the same or even better than the US exports to China, and Chinese exports to
Japan and the European Union enjoyed even higher record.
"It's unreasonable to think that Chinese products have become unsafe
overnight, as China has been importing goods to the U.S. and other countries for
quite a long time," said Li.
However, he also acknowledged that there were problems in the country's food
safety, and some enterprises, small ones in particular, were found to have used
food additives or non-food materials.
Food safety problems actually exist in many countries, and we need more
cooperation from other countries to improve the food safety, Li
said.