In China, the State does not muck about; in the wake of scandals about the safety of various Chinese products for export, the former head of the Chinese State Food and Drug Administration, Mr. Zheng Xiaoyu has been executed for taking bribes. Zheng Xiaoyu can count himself unlucky, given the maze of corruption that is a fact of life in China. But China is very sensitive about the safety of its products at the moment, and all the more so with the Beijing Olympics not far away.
And whoever Mr Zheng’s successor is, he or she will no doubt face similar temptations and dangers. For regulation is nearly as ubiquitous as corruption in China:
Regulators said their ability to monitor food and drug purity would greatly increase by 2010, when they enhanced their ability to respond to accidents and establish a national product recall system.
The authorities said inspectors would start shifting posts more often to prevent corruption, and that they would inspect a wider range of goods more frequently to ferret out fakes.
But they acknowledged that they face challenges in eliminating unsafe products. China has about 200 million farms, many of them less than an acre in size. It has nearly 450,000 food processing companies, nearly 80 percent with 10 employees or fewer, said Lin Wei, a senior official at the General Administration of Quality, Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
“This is our national condition,” Mr. Lin said. “It is our hope that by 2010 we can reduce the number of small food workshops by 50 percent and effectively curb law breaking and counterfeiting.”
Officials acknowledge that responsibility for food and drug safety involves as many as 17 government agencies, ranging from the Ministry of Health, which sets hygienic standards, to the Public Security Bureau, which has power to investigate criminal cases.
For Chinese companies, dealing with up to 17 agencies, the temptation to take shortcuts through corruption must be overwhelming. The answer for China must surely lie in a simplified administration system, not yet another layer of red tape.
I agree with the title of your post and, therefore, would go further than your conclusion.
What China needs is not a “simplified administrative structure” – it needs an end to the regulations (thus getting rid of the administrative structure).
If someone sells something is not the thing he said it was (does not do what he said he could do, for as long as he said it could, and up to the standard he said it could) this is breach of contract – fraud.
No need for any administrative regulations at all.
Indeed even if the courts do not understand or enforce contracts, a person or company that sold substandard goods would soon lose its reputation (expossing such people is good copy for journalists) and an enterprise that has a bad reputation soon loses its customers.
This is the point of the “brand” system. You know what you are buying (unless someone is faking the brand – as often happens in China) and know who to blame if the product is no good.
Buyer beware – make sure what you are buying is from an enterprise you trust.