Public outrage is mounting in China over allegations that a major state-owned food company has been cutting costs by using the same tankers to carry fuel and cooking oil – without cleaning them in between.
The scandal, which implicates China’s largest grain storage and transport company Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, has raised concerns of food contamination in a country rocked in recent decades by a string of food and drug safety scares – and evoked harsh criticism from Chinese state media.
It was an “open secret” in the transport industry that the tankers were doing double duty, according to a report in the state-linked outlet Beijing News last week, which alleged that trucks carrying certain fuel or chemical liquids were also used to transport edible liquids such as cooking oil, syrup and soybean oil, without proper cleaning procedures.
They take getting caught seriously, not the stuff they get caught at. Remember the government essentially has its finger in every pie so this kind of thing is not bad because it endangered people’s lives, it’s bad because it makes them look bad and might impact their exports.
They take getting caught seriously, not the stuff they get caught at.
This is it exactly. They (gov) literally don’t care if anyone gets hurt, they just care what the world’s perception of them is.
They take getting caught seriously, not the stuff they get caught at.
Wut. I’m not sure if this is a distinction without a difference, or a subtle distinction that I need a better grasp on continental philosophy to comprehend.
It’s like saying a state doesn’t take murder seriously - they take getting caught seriously. It’s technically true if you parse it a certain way, but ultimately meaningless
this kind of thing is not bad because it endangered people’s lives, it’s bad because it makes them look bad and might impact their exports
Something can be bad for multiple reasons. Also, there’s multiple actors here. The operators of the state-owned enterprise have different incentives than the regulators
What I’m saying is that because most large businesses in China are either directly controlled by the government or run by ranking party members, someone in power probably already knew this was going on and didn’t care because it made them money. What they do care about is getting caught, made to look foolish, and ruining China’s ability to export cheap, unregulated, and often dangerous crap across the globe. That’s what gets you punished in a situation like this in China, not the actual endangerment of people.
That’s just how an effective political system works. The governor and the people they appointed to cut expenses for Flint MI’s water system didn’t care enough about the potential consequences for the people of Flint because they knew there wouldn’t be severe consequences for them.
No system functions because it depends on people being good kind caring people.
Since you seem to be willfully misunderstanding what I was saying or what I was replying to, I think we’re done here.
I understand exactly what you’re saying, you are saying that Chinese officials don’t really care about endangering people’s lives, they just care about the consequences for doing so.
I’m telling you that’s how all political systems work.
