Jerome a Paris: forget about food regulation until the next crisis strikes.

Just like the financial meltdown on Wall Street, this food scandal is exceptional in scope and impact.

First of all, China is huge.  Four times bigger than Europe or the USA, population-wise.  Lots of people, lots of companies, lots of things to look over, in a ridiculously fast changing, churning environment.  Food regulation is carried out locally, but there is growing central government involvement.  And this scandal for sure will accelerate that.

Second, it's not liked developed countries like the U.S., Japan, Italy, and others haven't had, and continue to have, their own food contamination issues in recent years.  And China is not even a developed country yet.

Third, as metatone points out above, this story is all over the media.  Huge front page spreads on major dailies.  They've started tamping it down on TV because of too much rage on internet bulletin boards.  The government knows this is a big fuck-up, and just as they did already this year with the New Year's blizzards and the earthquake, they are choosing to tackle this problem head-on.

Helen makes a good point about how the government has shamefully smothered the school construction scandal in Sichuan, in part by paying off or intimidating parents into shutting up about it.  And it would be a good bet that if this milk tainting were local and isolatable, they would do the same here; since it is so widespread, the government has no choice but to deal with it openly.  That is obviously cynical of them.

But that does not change the fact that food quality is improving here, and although China still has far too many of these, it will have fewer and fewer of them over time, as an increasingly aware, demanding, and numerous middle class insists on better quality.  And as the government continues to get sick of losing so much face in the eyes of the world.

Point n'est besoin d'espérer pour entreprendre, ni de réussir pour persévérer. - Charles le Téméraire