Gourmet’s favorite, Chinese dumplings are facing a lot of flak in Japan after people falling seriously ill consuming them. A 5 year old girl is in a comatose state and other family members too are critically ill after eating the dumplings. In an official communiqué the Japan’s health ministry said the investigators were able to identify traces of organic phosphorus insecticide in the dumplings. Dozens of people also said they were suffering from the Chinese food for some time now. Thus, Japan becomes the latest in line to protest against the inferior products supplied by China.
Since last year China has been severely criticized for the standards employed in their product processing. Previously there was widespread condemnation of the supplies of toys coated with lead paint, defective tires; tooth paste, pet food and sea food containing industrial chemicals. China’s product safety agency claimed that it was co-operating with the Japanese authorities to find an early solution to this issue. Chinese authorities further stated that the products had cleared all the requisite export safety checks. Though the Chinese authorities had not admitted that there was food contamination, they promised that they would conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.
JT Foods Co, a subsidiary of Japan’s largest Tobacco firm, Japan Tobacco Inc said they would recall the frozen dumplings and other food made by the Chinese supplier, Hebei Foodstuffs Import & Export Group Tianyang Food Processing. Japan’s food market depends on more than 50% imports and Chinese food imports were worth $8.2bn in 2006 and accounted for 17 per cent of Japan’s external food purchases. Any move to contain Chinese food imports would create unimaginable rise in the food prices of Japanese Market. Likewise, if China does not quickly check such casualties in export front, it will be a huge setback to the country’s flourishing exports in the coming days.