Who is real offender?
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Xinhua, October 25, 2011
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Low prices, lower quality [By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn] |
Wal-Mart has been recently ordered to close 13 outlets for two weeks in Chongqing, southwestern China and to pay 2.7 million yuan ($421,000) in fines after being caught mislabeling ordinary pork as environment-friendly "green pork." The Wal-Mart stores were accused of selling more than 63,500 kg of mislabeled pork.
The company, which recently celebrated its 15th foundung anniversary in China, now has 221 supermarkets in China, including ten in Chongqing.
Wal-Mart has developed a reputation over the years for lax quality control in China. According to Chongqing trade officials, the supermarket chain had been fined 20 times for false labeling and selling expired or spurious foods since 2006. Eight of the 20 instances occurred earlier this year.
Indeed, China has been beleaguered with constant problems like mislabeling, repackaging of expired food, fake and substandard food and other issues despite long and repeated efforts to improve the enforcement of food safety rules.
The relevant authorities have also taken harsh measures fighting against problems in food safety, and launched a severe crackdown on crimes endangering the public health. But violations by big foreign stores and penalties accordingly tend to draw more attention and even some biased commentaries from some foreign media.
Some mouthpieces of foreign governments have even gone so far as to hit out at Chongqing's measures on Wal-Mart's misconduct in misadvertising and misleading consumers as "Xenophobia" and "a new version of the Chinese nationalism."
Some Western media attempted to shift the public attention and distort the story in their coverage to defend Wal-Mart's "mislabeling pork" saying with some ironic air that "the pork misadvertised by Wal-Mart is not organic, but at least it is no poison as the food in China's domestic market. The Chinese government is making a fuss."
New waves of opinion attack set up by echelons of foreign media are no more than an extension of Western hostility and prejudice against China.
Any foreign business should be no exception to the international standards which require the business abide by the laws and regulations of the country where it is based and conducts business.
Whoever it is, the foreign company cannot enjoy "extraterritoriality", nor "privilege" as expected over local companies. That means it will have to unconditionally accept the fact that rules are rules ----which are binding for both domestic and foreign businesses, and will never be bent for anybody.
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