"This time it was thousands of pets but what if the next time it is thousands of humans killed by a counterfeit or contaminated product."
This is what I received from a reader about the pet food crisis recently. I read the stories about tainted pet food and toothpaste. These stories remind me of my stories on BaiYangdian lake which used to be a beautiful lake in northern China. However, last spring people found a lot of dead fish floating on the lake. There were different explanations, including the rapid change of weather, the lack of air for such huge numbers of fish in a limited space, the polluted water dumping into the lake from Baoding, a nearby city. I went to the cities and counties around the lake and finally I found that it was the combination of many factors. But the biggest reason is the pollution generated by continuous development of industries around the lake, first in the city, then expanding to nearby villages. There is a lack of recognition and no efficient way to solve the problem of pollution when rapid economic development is occurring.
I agree with my reader; I worry about the health of people and animals, of course, not only in the States but also in China.
In the comment, the reader also said:
"If you did a hard-hitting investigative story and it hit close to high ranking officials, would you get a Chinese "Pulitzer" or imprisonment?"
My answer is:
As a reporter, I have written a lot of stories on health and environmental issues. Most of them are cover stories or special reports for my magazine. Some of them did hit high ranking officials and helped to change the situation.
That is why I love my job and why journalists are so important in today’s China. Because you can make a difference to people’s life.
Though I got no Chinese”Pulitzer,” I am still working and writing blogs in English and columns in Chinese.
Another thing I worry is about the China bashing emotion from this comment.
If my cat or dog got sick because of the food, I may also get angry. Actually in China, there was also a lot of foreign bashing when cats and dogs got sick because of pet food from Mars, an international company; Or when people’s eyes got sick because of the product of Bausch & Lomb, an international company based in N.Y.
Several days ago I had a hot debate with a scholar on trade on intellectual property rights. Reluctantly admitting this problem exists in China, he criticized big foreign companies for monopolizing intellectual property and said that it is the high price of luxury products from such firms as Armani that drives people to steal intellectual property.
So ridiculous!
If we don’t realize the serious problem of intellectual property in China, there will never be rapid development of high technology industries in the country. We must protect intellectual property not because of the pressure from the States but because it is the key to the development of our country.
I cannot understand why this guy just wants to criticize and fight Americans but not emphasize the importance of intellectual property in China!
As for my reader’s angry comment on so many issues, I would like to say that we need to focus on the solution of a specific problem to really solve it.
If we expand the complaints from pet food to slave labor and even to Chinese foreign policy in Sudan, it raises the emotional temperature without solving the problem. We need solutions, not slogans.
