China sought to reassure Taiwanese consumers that its dairy products were safe yesterday, a day after authorities confirmed that a toddler in Hong Kong developed kidney stones from consuming milk and cookies laced with melamine. Beijing has ordered that all milk products more than a month old be pulled for testing.
Spokesman Yang Yi (楊毅) of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said at a news conference in Beijing that authorities were very concerned about the scandal, in which contaminated infant formula killed four babies and sickened tens of thousands of children nationwide.
“We have taken a serious approach,” Yang said. “China has launched a thorough investigation into this issue to help restore the trust of Taiwanese consumers.”
After China’s melamine scandal broke last month, Taiwanese authorities launched a sweeping inspection of milk powders and related food items. More than 160 products containing Chinese milk and vegetable-based proteins have been removed from stores.
Taiwanese and Chinese food safety authorities have agreed to set up a hot line to inform each other of food safety emergencies.
China has ordered all milk products more than a month old pulled from store shelves for emergency testing, the largest blanket product withdrawal since the scandal first came to light.
All milk powder and liquid milk produced before Sept. 14 must be tested by manufacturers nationwide, China’s chief quality watchdog said in an announcement reported by the Xinhua news agency on Tuesday and posted on its Web site yesterday.
“Regardless of the brand or the batch, they must be taken off shelves. Their sale must be stopped,” the order from the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said.
Products will be sold again only after they pass quality tests and are labeled as saying they do not exceed limits for melamine, the safety watchdog said.
It was not clear why the cutoff date for the latest notice was Sept. 14, but China launched a countrywide inspection of dairy-producing facilities focusing on milk collecting centers on Sept. 15.
In Vietnam, state-controlled media said yesterday the Health Ministry has banned all products for human consumption that are contaminated with melamine.
Deputy Health Minister Cao Minh Quang also told the Labor newspaper that importers must send back any tainted imported products to the country of origin.
Chinese authorities have blamed dairy suppliers for the food safety scandal that began last month, saying they added melamine to watered-down milk to fool quality control tests and make the product appear rich in protein.
Melamine can cause kidney stones as the body tries to eliminate it and, in extreme cases, lead to life-threatening kidney failure.
Infants and toddlers are particularly susceptible.
Hong Kong’s government said on Tuesday that a two-year-old boy developed two kidney stones after consuming melamine-laced milk and cookies.
Government spokesman Alex Cheng said the boy had been drinking three packs of milk produced by Chinese dairy Yili Industrial Group Co each week for the past two years. He also ate about five packs per week of chocolate-filled Koala cookies, made by Tokyo-based snack maker Lotte Group.
Also See: SEF protests beating of two Taiwanese in China and demands compensation
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
RSS