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Y'know all those "harmonized" international rules in those agreements? Who could be against "harmony"? Are surely are not for "disharmony" or "cacaphony"? Jeez... we just don't have the focus groups that they have. We can't take technical terms/concepts and make them soft and fuzzy and fun, with our focus groups, so we use their words and don't realize we lose because of it.
Harmonized food safety rules mean you can't inspect the foreign product in many ways. And a low-budget FDA can't inspect the product it should right now. Immigration and Customs could not care less about mislabeling or rotten products coming in because they are looking for drugs and bombs.
In that context, here is some heartening news from the Chinese who feed us with state-subsidized/poorly-regulated farm industries.
A central government official in charge of licensing food production companies killed himself August 2 in Beijing after meeting with party discipline officers the day before, sources told Caijing.
Wu Jianping, 42, had headed the Department of Supervision on Food Production at the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine since 2005.
And here is the state of regulation in China's food manufacturing/production:
Wu’s department issued licenses for food production companies and conducted compulsory inspections for product quality, safety and hygiene.
Among the estimated 450,000 food producers in China, less than a quarter have food production licenses.
But don't crack down because that might hurt "free trade." Rules are bad for free trade, because then you are a protectionist.
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