Sat, Sep 27, 2008 page8

• Johnny Neihu's News Watch: Aiya, your business? My kidneys!

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  It turns out denial is a river in China, not Egypt.

  Faced with a global scandal over tainted milk and other toxic, made-in-China exports, Xiang Yuzhang (項玉章), China’s “national quality watchdog chief inspection official,” told reporters this week: “There is no problem.”

  That’s a direct quote, from agency reports, via the Times of India.

  Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party’s “Jedi mind trick” approach to calming nervous foreigners ain’t gonna fly.

  As the article goes on to say: “China could face an uphill struggle to convince its own people and those abroad that it has the situation in hand.”

  You can say that again. As thousands more Chinese babies get sick (not to mention orangutans) and as tainted creamer, baby formula and other products are traced to places of consumption around the globe, Beijing’s got to be preeeetty embarrassed now.

  They should be.

  The Chinese people are the worst victims, of course. Yet at what point do they, too, deserve a share of the blame? I mean it’s they who are tolerating — even, at times, extolling the virtues of — an authoritarian government built by a party that’s corrupt to its foundations and completely unaccountable.

  No doubt some of these same citizens whose babies are tragically dying today were yesterday championing their government for returning China to its “proud, rightful place among the big powers.”

  At any rate, China’s present role among big powers appears to be spewing out a barrage of toxic, shoddy and all-round crap products and keeping national health regulators the world over scrambling to keep up.

  Taiwan’s no exception — turns out our little island imported 25 tonnes of dubious milk powder and Matsu knows what else from Crazyland across the Strait.

  You’d think that would have given Taiwan an easy opportunity to show how a responsible government in a normally functioning democracy reacts to a public health threat.

  You’d be wrong.

  In fact, our government has shown the worst crisis management skills since a cranky French aristocrat sniffed: “Let them eat cake.”

  In Taipei this week, it was: “Let them drink toxic milk — ’salright, so long’s they also drink plenty of water.”

  The bumbling reaction started at the top, with Shuaige-in-Chief Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), inserting his heavily gelled head deep into the sand (and that’s the polite interpretation).

  He managed to muster up some outrage by mid-week, however, saying: “I condemn the mainland manufacturers that have produced fake milk and dairy creamer,” according to The Associated Press. But his best impression of a spine-bearing mammal was too little, too late.

  His underlings’ behavior was even more risible. In China, officials go into hiding and stop answering the phones at the first sign of crisis, hoping the storm will pass before anyone can trace any sort of responsibility back to them. Try to locate them through their secretaries or associates, and all you’ll get is “Bu fangbian” (“It’s not convenient” to talk right now).

  In Taiwan, by contrast, officials go in front of lawmakers and cameras and openly display their rank stupidity.

  Take our (now former, thankfully) minister of health Lin Fang-yue (林芳郁) who, according to a report in our own Taipei Times, said during the enterovirus outbreak in June that “he would rely on prayer if the outbreak persisted.”

  Now I’m not sure what deity Lin prays to, but here’s a message from on high: Matsu helps those who help themselves — and that goes double for gettin’ a bunch of three-in-one coffee packs off the frickin’ shelves.

  Instead of doing so, officials announced they were blocking any new imports of suspect products and seizing bulk bags of non-dairy creamer that had already entered the country — while leaving products that actually contained the stuff sitting on shelves at a store near you.

  Said Lin at a legislative hearing: “The toxicity [of such products] is limited if you don’t drink it very often.”

  Huh?

  Before long, we’ll be hearing them say a few kidney stones are good for you — they build character.

  By mid-week, pea-brained chabuduo officials got a clue and began actually removing or demanding the removal of products from store shelves.

  But while they were doing that, they kicked another public relations own-goal. Late on Wednesday night they decided to raise the cap for the acceptable concentration of melamine from zero parts per million to 2.5 — before reversing the move yesterday.

  Melamine, for readers who managed to sit out the media poo-storm, is the industrial chemical that’s hospitalizing Chinese babies in their tens of thousands — and that’s the number the Chicoms admit to.

  But health officials in Taiwan were apparently concerned that retailers would lose too much business if they tried to make sure no products contained the stuff.

  Which brings to mind the old Jewish retirees-complaining-in-the-nursing-home gag: “Your business? My kidneys!”

  You know, I thought the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) went a little overboard when, during token presidential candidate Frank Hsieh’s (謝長廷) final campaign rally, it staged a mind-bending “dance of the heixin [defective] Chinese products” number.

  Greenies among you may remember that organizers dressed a bunch of people up as toxic products — Chinese dumplings laced with cyanide, and so on — and had them dance around on a map of Taiwan. It was supposed to help raise fears about Ma’s plan to open the Taiwanese economy to China, but it came off like a bizarre Stephen Sondheim-meets-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory off-off-off-Broadway disaster.

  But now, it seems the DPP’s only mistake was not dressing up a few lamei as three-in-one coffee mix bags to do some jitterbugging.

  But the Bonehead Move of the Week came on Tuesday, when our witless premier, Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), announced that Taiwan would send a team of health officials to China to “gain a better understanding of China’s food safety mechanisms.”

  Well that shouldn’t take long. Just imagine:

  Inspector One: Gosh, there sure seem to be a lot of irregularities in this company’s management and accounting practices!

  Inspector Two: Good gracious, and Chinese law is crystal clear that this kind of thing is illegal!

  Inspector One: (Furrowing brow) Golly, it’s almost as if ... as if local government officials knew about the problems, but did nothing about them!

  Inspector Two: Could it be that this is because they were getting regular payouts to look the other way?

  Inspector One: You really think ...? I’m shocked, shocked!

  Inspector Two: In fact, it’s not a health problem at all, is it? This is all starting to look p-p-p-puh-puh—

  Inspector One: Political?

  Inspector Two: Precisely.

  Inspector One: Oh well, that’s out of our jurisdiction then. We can’t do anything about that now, can we?

  Inspector Two: Nah.

  Inspector One: Hey, I hear Mayor “Fattie” Zhu’s invited us all to KTV, and they’ve promised some “entertainment” (winks at Inspector Two).

  Inspector Two: But, but ... you mean he’ll pay for everything? Isn’t that un-un-un-un—

  Inspector One: Unethical? Relax, TVBS can’t follow us here. They try to get near us or the KTV and they’ll get a smackdown.

  Inspector Two: (Chuckling) That’ll be a nice change.

  Inspector One: (walks off arm-in-arm with Inspector Two) God, I love this job.

  Here’s how the crisis will be solved: Some health official in China will get fingered for blame and have a bullet put through his head.

  That will scare the living bejeezus out of his corrupt colleagues for a few weeks, before they return to their rent-seeking, high-rolling ways, and toxic crap will fly out of factories anew. In a few months, the entire cycle will repeat.

  At least one person spoke some sense. When asked about the study trip to China for Taiwan’s health officials, professor Lin Chieh-liang (林杰樑) at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Linkou (林口), Taipei County, said: “It’s a waste of money,” according to this paper’s arch-rival, the China Post.

  The melamine scare is like a fire “which is now burning your arse,” Dr Lin said. “What we have to do right now is to fight and put it out.”

  Well said, sir.

  Unfortunately, judging by this week’s events, our government is much better at putting its head up said arse than putting out fires in its vicinity.

  Got something to tell Johnny? Go on, get it off your chest. Write to dearjohnny@taipeitimes.com, but be sure to put “Dear Johnny” in the subject line or he’ll mark your bouquets and brickbats as spam.
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