"It seems that doctoring substandard milk is common all over the world...Perhaps it's time to test dairy products from Denmark, U.S.A., France and Holland etc. for dodgy additives?"

This article reads like it was written by a China reporter for a Chinese newspaper. Perhaps it's time for a vacation, Jeremy; living in Beijing during the "Love-it-or-leave-it" Olympics may have been harder on you than you think!

Farmers and food companies worldwide mess with our food, often altering even the genes of the fruit in question. We have every right to expect that processed food will be inspected by farmers, distributors, manufacturers, governments of importing markets, etc. China should definitely carry out such inspections on milk and other food products as it sees fit; the fact that a product comes from the EU or the US is no guarantee of quality, in my mind.

However, the fact that adulterated milk is sold in the West does not absolve those in China's dairy supply chain of responsibility for their role in badly polluting virtually all the product produced in China, in some cases, resulting in sickness and even death.

Are you seriously comparing what New Zealand milk farmers do by "beefing up" their fresh milk with milk powder, with the practice in China -- adding an industrial chemical, melamine -- in large amounts?

Let's not forget there are solid "Chinese characteristics" to the Made-in-China milk fiasco, which your article doesn't touch upon. A bit of reminding here, then, to keep the events in perspective:

*** The current milk powder scare is the second, not the first, such large-scale event of its kind in the last 3 years. Promises by the central government to put an end to it have clearly been ignored at all levels;

*** The level of toxicity in milk powder for infants is astoundingly high, and was known for several months by officials at the provincial level before action was taken. It seems obvious one major reason for the delay was the desire to keep the world's eyes focused on Beijing's Olympics, rather than let the scandal break when thousands of foreign reporters were on Chinese soil;

*** To the best of my knowledge, the central government has not forbidden the sale of processed milk -- milk powder excepted -- from brands such as Yili and Bright Dairy, nor has it forced them to recall their goods until they can show their processes are melamine-free. All over Shenzhen I can still buy so-called longlife milk carrying these brands, and I assume this milk was processed before any new QC methods could be employed.

There issues about milk products coming from china that has melamine in it has spread worldwide. People around the world are scared that their foods are also contaminated with melamine. Philippines have started to pull milk products in groceries that are suspected of high melamine content . Here's 52 Milk Products that could be banned due to high Melamine Content in the Philippines.

Yes, pet planet, that is true. and as far as I have read, the products that are being tested/pulled are the ones made in china

Bruce,

Danwei has been all toxic milk all the time since the scandal broke, and we have not gone easy on China about it.

Nonetheless, it does seem that the global dairy industry is dodgy.

@Jeremy: You wrote "it does seem that the global dairy industry is dodgy"

No. It does not seem that. What it does "seem" is that Jeremy Goldkorn has a dodgy mate who worked at a dodgy dairy.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence".

There are dodgy car mechanics, plumbers, doctors, lawyers, and, yes, probably dairy farmers all over the world. And systems in place to catch them, as well as a system of moral outrage / criticism (known as the "free press") to name and shame them.

But the SYSTEMATIC adding of INDUSTRIAL CHEMICALS to raw agricultural products, followed by a COVER-UP at three different levels of government, along with strict "guidelines" about what local media can "report" about the issue is a COMPLETELY different issue.

In fact it's the worst of China in microcosm, and unique in the world. Nowhere else does the intersection of cultural indifference to the stranger interleave quite so disturbingly with massive systemic corruption and totalitarian cover-up-as-the-default-reaction behavior.

Trying to make some kind of tortured equivalence between your dodgy mate and the Chinese dairy industry, as you've explicitly done in this post (and again in the comments section!) shows a certain lack of intellectual vigor, and dare I say contempt for your readers.

You're becoming as bad as the patriotic Chinese bloggers who are gloating in their millions over the US financial crisis, and yet somehow completely missing the fact that the supreme leader's "plan" (the Whitehouse "bailout" package) was voted yesterday because of PUBLIC PRESSURE!

Can you imagine that happening in China?

Yeah. It's all the same wherever you go. Right.

@Non-sequitur

Your points about China here is hard but true. (I am a Chinese).

But you use U.S.A government's reaction in finance crisis as an example. That is really a bad example. Think about why this crisis happens at all.

@Non-sequitur

It's always been easy to blame the "totalirian regime", CCP knows that the best. But the issue here is the food saftey all around the world. No one can escape the suspicion in this crisis when alarm bells blows off. Even if China wanted to cover it up, it couldn't. It finally came to the press and not by foreign media but Chinese media. Think about the financial crisis now, can you also blame the "democratic regime" that is only interested in "getting votes" but ignoring the alarming situation? By the way, Chinese are patriotic, and that's why they can accept the critism and are striving for a change. Americans have the patriotic reputation as well, can they broaden their mind and hear the opinions from others? You tell me.

Maybe, just maybe, the most far fetched thing I have read on danwei:

"Chinese are patriotic, and that's why they can accept the critism.."

It depends on how you interpret "patriotic". It might be a negative term in American dictionary, but in Chinese one, it means the love, not the spoiling type, but the type that sometimes hurts, for its country. You will read more, believe me.

oh wow, there're sooooo many people who just don't want to admit that they're drinking/eating products with Melamine everyday produced from their country.

at least China admitted it & have already shutted down the factory & arrested whoever added Melamine to the milk :)

sad..some people are just so sinophobia.

juan, my comment was about the accepting criticism part, not definitions of patriotic.

Patriotism is fine as long as its based on reasoning and common sense, as it should, no one is completely free from his or her nationality until we are under one constitution, but it does brew extreme nationalism, thats why I don't like what happened few months ago when people behaved violently.

There is a fine line between patriotism and nationalism, however, not many people understand it.