No Chinese meat for the US

[BYeh1]

Fett - I'm involved in US/China trade and investment, have been watching this closely, its part of a complicated and growing strategic trade war between the US and China.

The drum's been beating with stories about lead paint in toys, food tampering, etc. over the past 2-3 years as the US has lobbied hard and unsuccessfully for the Chinese currency to appreciate.

Products imported from China are all subject to the same regulations as US producers, so make no mistake about it, this is about leveling the growing US trade deficit with China. When the US needs to exert pressure for negotiating leverage, it periodically releases stories like this to sway US public opinion. Doing this ahead of the Olympics is a smart move since the stories get a lot of traction as the world turns its attention to the Beijing Olympics.

I've been traveling to China for business since 1992 and trust me the food is fine there, especially at all the international hotels and restaurants that will be serving the Olympic athletes. Every major US hotel and restaurant chain has locations in Beijing selling their food to the Chinese, so this story about food safety in China is a straw-man argument. Our hotels and restaurants in China sell $10s of billions in food each year to the Chinese and visiting Westerners. McDonald's has 1,000 restaurants in China (!), so pushing this argument too hard could jeopardize over $1 billion in Chinese sales for McDonald's alone.

Like our parents taught us, don't believe everything you read in the papers, there's always more to the story.

[Cygnus X1]

Good call, BY...
I can tell similar stories about the steel industry.

[fr0sty]

Great insight from someone in the know Thanks for that!

Fett - I'm involved in US/China trade and investment, have been watching this closely, its part of a complicated and growing strategic trade war between the US and China.

The drum's been beating with stories about lead paint in toys, food tampering, etc. over the past 2-3 years as the US has lobbied hard and unsuccessfully for the Chinese currency to appreciate.

Products imported from China are all subject to the same regulations as US producers, so make no mistake about it, this is about leveling the growing US trade deficit with China. When the US needs to exert pressure for negotiating leverage, it periodically releases stories like this to sway US public opinion. Doing this ahead of the Olympics is a smart move since the stories get a lot of traction as the world turns its attention to the Beijing Olympics.

I've been traveling to China for business since 1992 and trust me the food is fine there, especially at all the international hotels and restaurants that will be serving the Olympic athletes. Every major US hotel and restaurant chain has locations in Beijing selling their food to the Chinese, so this story about food safety in China is a straw-man argument. Our hotels and restaurants in China sell $10s of billions in food in China each year to the Chinese and visiting Westerners. McDonald's alone has 1,000 restaurants in China (!), so pushing this argument too hard could jeopardize over US$1 billion in Chinese sales for McDonald's alone.

Like our parents taught us, don't believe everything you read in the papers, there's always more to the story.

[Rsmacker]

Fuck it, let's just attack them now, we're gonna fall out with that lot sooner or later anyway, and it's best we get our retaliation in first, while we still have the chance of the upper hand.
When all those paddy-field pushbike riders are fully mechanised and have cars (armoured or otherwise) and TVs and fridges, they will tire of us asking nicely if they wouldn't mind awfully if they would stop gobbling up resources like we have been doing since the Industrial Revolution. They are going to get really arsey one day, flex their muscles, maybe take Taiwan/Formosa back, as they have PROMISED to do all along, and we are all going to squeak and let them get on with it.

That day, the West is fucked. It's coming, mark my words.

Either that or the next great Influenza epidemic or similar which decimates world populations will be squarely down to Chinese food/animal welfare practices. We had a couple of false starts with SARS and Bird Flu, but right now there is almost certainly a peasant with a runny nose in the wilds of China wishing the new road had been finished so he could go and see a town for the first time, and maybe see a doctor.

So expect more stories about the Yellow Peril, true or otherwise.
Be afraid, be very afraid!!

[FusionFarmer]

Heres the latest crap Chinas gonna pull, they have been buying up a shit load of our young (6-12 month old) female calves (heifers) and shipping them live to china, to use as the breeding stock for their new beef cattle industry, You know inspections will be a joke and as long as some big fucking corporation here in the states can make a buck out of importing chinese beef, our friggin government will give em the green light to bring it in, being a small scale beef rancher I am less than pleased about this,, Fuck China,, soon we will all be out of a job and won't be able to buy their inferior products....

[åron]

Products imported from China are all subject to the same regulations as US producers, so make no mistake about it, this is about leveling the growing US trade deficit with China.

Regulations were made to be broken. Some Chinese and some US producers bend/break/ignore them to increase profit. Hello 148 million pounds of downer cow beef, i'd like some mad cow in my beef stew. Tastes so good. Go on eating that cheap commercial food, people.

I've been traveling to China for business since 1992 and trust me the food is fine there, especially at all the international hotels and restaurants that will be serving the Olympic athletes. Every major US hotel and restaurant chain has locations in Beijing selling their food to the Chinese, so this story about food safety in China is a straw-man argument. Our hotels and restaurants in China sell $10s of billions in food each year to the Chinese and visiting Westerners. McDonald's has 1,000 restaurants in China (!), so pushing this argument too hard could jeopardize over $1 billion in Chinese sales for McDonald's alone.

I'm impressed you've developed the ability to discern tainted food from uncontaminated food. Perhaps you should go to work for the US Dept of Agriculture where your superior psychic powers can keep consumer confidence in the US food supply high.

BTW, fük McDonalds, China and blind trust in the business practices of greedy cunts.