China is screwed up and screwing the world. All you need to do especially if you are a TreeHugger is to look into what they are doing with paper and forestry! My understanding is that they are major culprits in clear cutting and forestry abuse. I would recommend avoiding paper products printed in China as the paper was likely sourced by them irresponsibly. FSC certified, Made In the USA paper products are the way to go! P.S. - FSC.org Forest Stewardship Council assures responsibly managed forests...

what people fail to realize about china is that it is essentially an anarchic state. if people don't believe in "the Law", they aren't going to follow it--or they'll follow it only if they believe that they will be punished otherwise.

this sort of thing happens because we really don't do anything about it... china poisons us through air, land, and sea, tosses its daughters off of ledges, whipcracks its sons until their backs are made into happy meals, nurtures our addiction to consumerism, shoots dissenters in a big public hoo-how, throws people into concentration camps for meditating the wrong way, and generally ignores all of the rules that we set for human rights, and still, the stores carry stuff, it's the stuff that's there, it's got a sticker on it somewhere that was put there by the laws of supply and demand, and the governments still don't raise tariffs to a preventative level, don't launch trade embargoes, don't really do much of anything, because there's no competing nation of 1.2 billion mostly ex-agricultural workers, ideally situated on the western Pacific Rim, to turn to.
Basically what it comes down to is that they OWN US. we think we're the first world but really... we need their stuff way more than they need our money. That means they call the shots. It's an ideological battle, perhaps: their belief in China, whatever that means to them beyond not getting shot for not believing in it, is way more powerful & effective than the West's belief in getting more stuff that does better stuff and using it to be better than our friends and enemies.

In Asian countries, "yes" may mean "no" and vice versa for reasons of "getting along" and avoiding conflict but this mentality does not seem to work when it comes to control over the production of food exports regarding contamination or environmental pollution controls.

"Probe even a little into the Chinese economic miracle and glaring administrative failures abound. "

My understanding is that the system is designed for administrative failures in order to promote and dissuade administrative success. Administrative success would mean greater control of the government over business and manufacturing by enforcement of its rules. The government already has laws but uses them selectively in such a manner as to promote their abuse.

Sometimes they implement one set of laws to destroy the effectiveness of other laws.

Take for example their use of laws restricting opposition to environmental protest. They clearly have laws protecting their environment but choose to arrest those protesting environmental damage so that their environmental laws are seemingly without effect. Food laws with standards that are not enforced also come under this category of business expansion without responsibility as to harmful side effects.

The Chinese mentality is here to stay as we cannot control their methods from our country. However, if we impose economic sanctions on those companys producing products that are harmful, then they may act. The Pavlovian method seems to be the only way.

adrianakau2aol.com