From Global Viewpont:
The Chinese government’s execution of the country’s former chief food and drug regulator last week is intended to send a strong message, both to warn its officials and to reassure the international community that Beijing is taking decisive steps to make its food and drugs safe.
This proverbial act of “slaughtering a chicken to warn the monkeys” undoubtedly will have a short-term effect of restraining venal officials who populate the country’s creaky regulatory bureaucracies. Only the irredeemably greedy would tempt fate when the central government in Beijing, embarrassed by the intense international scrutiny of unsafe Chinese products, is waging a campaign against corrupt regulators in the food and drug industries. [Full Text]
Minxin Pei (Ë£¥Êïèʨ£) is a senior associate and director of the China Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Read also China’s Safety Issues Could Be Deadly for Its Economy, an interview with Minxin Pei by James Pethokoukis.
