Japan’s Chinese residents buying up powdered milk

If Japan wants good relations with China they should be shipping truckloads of this stuff to China. This one act *could* change the perception of many Chinese people – remember the appreciation shown for the Japanese rescuers that went to China after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake?

China is still an industrial / agricultural society. It hasn’t got it’s act together as far as food safety is concerned. This will come in time.

Japan is an industrial / technological society – ok, with a bit of agriculture – homegrown rice preference is one example. Food safety guidelines are implemented and should be trustworthy.

However, there are on both sides – in China and Japan aspects of ‘personal greed’ where unscrupulous individuals try, and all too often succeed in, bypassing food safety guidelines, leaving the general population to suffer – Misaka rice, BSE beef, the list goes on… In China you get the chop (death penalty) in Japan they just slap your wrists, you retire from public service and earn a huge wedge of cash in the private sector advising companies on how to bypass government regulations. Personally, I think that China (chop) method is far more effective.

It seems rather cruel, not to mention diplomatically short-sighted, to put up those stupid signs. The shopkeepers stand to make money off these people, which I supposed speaks more to them than all the poisoned babies anywhere in the world BUT Japan. They’re just foreign babies after all, right? Grr. Yes, there are other countries to buy from, I know. There are other ways. But the fact that individual shopkeepers sit there and go through the “You know what? Screw you. And your babies. And your friends’ babies.” logic really offends me.