China has blacklisted more than 400 exporters for violating trade rules following a series of food, drug and other health scares across the world, the Commerce Ministry said yesterday.
The list included two pet food manufacturers that had exported to the US. Washington stepped up inspections of imports from China after a chemical additive in pet food caused the death of some pets there earlier this year.
Since then, poisonous ingredients have been found in Chinese exports of toys, toothpaste and fish, while the deaths of patients in Panama were blamed on improperly labeled Chinese chemicals that were mixed into cough syrup.
In the latest scare, US toy maker Mattel said on Wednesday that it was recalling 1.5 million Chinese-made toys worldwide because their paint may contain too much lead.
Chinese Vice Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng (高虎城) stressed the government line that Chinese products were overwhelmingly safe and of high quality, and called on foreign media not to hype the problems of a small minority of goods or companies.
But on the ministry Web site, he said 429 Chinese firms on the blacklist had been punished for violating export regulations. The Web site did not elaborate.
"China will strengthen international cooperation on the safety of products," Gao was quoted as saying.
A delegation of US officials in Beijing hammered out "basic frameworks" for two agreements seeking to reassure US consumers that Chinese-made goods met safety standards, Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt said on Friday.
China, where the former drug and food safety watchdog chief was executed last month for corruption, has also canceled the licenses of six medicine manufacturers.
The China Daily said 270 "on-the-spot drug test" vans would soon hit the roads of rural China to weed out counterfeit drugs.
In related news, Beijing has banned all Indonesian seafood imports after checks turned up toxins, dangerous chemicals and pathogens, the government said.
Martani Huseini, a senior official at Indonesia's Department of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, said the move appeared to be in reaction to an import ban last month on certain Chinese products. Indonesia said it had found that some Chinese cosmetics contained mercury.
Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has died of pneumonia at the age of 48 while on a trip to Japan, where she contracted influenza during the Lunar New Year holiday, her sister confirmed today through an agent. "Our whole family came to Japan for a trip, and my dearest and most kindhearted sister Barbie Hsu died of influenza-induced pneumonia and unfortunately left us," Hsu's sister and talk show hostess Dee Hsu (徐熙娣) said. "I was grateful to be her sister in this life and that we got to care for and spend time with each other. I will always be grateful to
REMINDER: Of the 6.78 million doses of flu vaccine Taiwan purchased for this flu season, about 200,000 are still available, an official said, following Big S’ death As news broke of the death of Taiwanese actress and singer Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as Big S (大S), from severe flu complications, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and doctors yesterday urged people at high risk to get vaccinated and be alert to signs of severe illness. Hsu’s family yesterday confirmed that the actress died on a family holiday in Japan due to pneumonia during the Lunar New Year holiday. CDC Deputy Director-General Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) told an impromptu news conference that hospital visits for flu-like illnesses from Jan. 19 to Jan. 25 reached 162,352 — the highest
COMBINING FORCES: The 66th Marine Brigade would support the 202nd Military Police Command in its defense of Taipei against ‘decapitation strikes,’ a source said The Marine Corps has deployed more than 100 soldiers and officers of the 66th Marine Brigade to Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) as part of an effort to bolster defenses around the capital, a source with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Two weeks ago, a military source said that the Ministry of National Defense ordered the Marine Corps to increase soldier deployments in the Taipei area. The 66th Marine Brigade has been tasked with protecting key areas in Taipei, with the 202nd Military Police Command also continuing to defend the capital. That came after a 2017 decision by the ministry to station
PETITIONS: A Democratic Progressive Party official quoted President William Lai as saying that civil society groups are organizing the recall drives at the grassroots level Some civil society groups yesterday announced that they have collected enough signatures to pass the first-stage threshold to initiate a recall vote against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators in 18 constituencies nationwide, saying that they would submit the signatures to the Central Election Commission (CEC) today. They also said that they expected to pass the threshold in eight more constituencies in the coming days, meaning the number of KMT legislators facing a recall vote could reach 26. The groups set up stations to collect signatures at local marketplaces and busy commercial districts. The legislators their petition drives target include Fu