Hostname: page-component-6587cd75c8-cpvbf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-24T01:44:49.487Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Food Safety and Social Risk in Contemporary China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2012

Yunxiang Yan
Get access

Abstract

Food-safety problems constitute a new, urgent, and multifaceted challenge to Chinese people, society, and the state, involving a number of social, political, and ethical issues beyond those of food safety, nutrition, and health. In light of Ulrich Beck's theory of risk society, this article examines food-safety problems in contemporary Chinese society at the levels of food hygiene, unsafe food, and poisonous foods and argues that food-safety problems not only affect the lives of Chinese people in harmful ways but also pose a number of manufactured risks that are difficult to calculate and control. More importantly, food-safety problems in China have contributed to a rapid decline of social trust, thus posing a risk of distrust that has far-reaching social and political ramifications. In this sense, a risk society has already arrived in China but it comes with certain local characteristics and poses some new theoretical questions.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , August 2012 , pp. 705 - 729
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

List of References

Almas, Reidar. 1999. “Food Trust, Ethics and Safety in Risk Society.” Sociological Research Online 4(3). http://www.socresonline.org.uk/socresonline/4/3/almas.html (accessed May 9, 2011).Google Scholar
Barboza, David. 2009. “Death Sentences Given in Chinese Milk Scandal.” New York Times, February 2. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/world/asia/22iht-milk.3.19601372.html (accessed September 10, 2010).Google Scholar
Barboza, David. 2010. “Recycled Cooking Oil Found to Be Latest Hazard in China.” New York Times, March 31. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/world/asia/01shanghai.html?scp=1&sq=recycled%20cooking%20oil%20found%20to%20be%20latesthazard%20in%20china&st=cse (accessed October 28, 2010).Google Scholar
Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. Translated by Ritter, Mark. London: Sage Publications Ltd.Google Scholar
Beck, Ulrich. 2000. “Risk Society Revisited: Theory, Politics and Research Programmes.” In The Risk Society and Beyond: Critical Issues for Social Theory. eds. Adam, Barbara, Beck, Ulrich, and van Loon, Joost, 211–29. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Beck, Ulrich. 2009. World at Risk. Translated by Cronin, Ciaran. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Buchler, Sandra, Smith, Kiah, and Lawrence, Geoffrey. 2010. “Food Risks, Old and New: Demographic Characteristics and Perceptions of Food Additives, Regulation and Contamination in Australia.” Journal of Sociology 46(4): 353–74.Google Scholar
Calvin, Linda, Gale, Fred, Hu, Dinghuan, and Lohmar, Bryan. 2006. “Food Safety Improvements Underway in China.” Amber Waves 4(5): 16–21.Google Scholar
Ruoshui, Chen. 2006. Gonggong yishi yu Zhongguo wenhua [Public awareness and Chinese culture]. Beijing: Xinxing chubanshe.Google Scholar
CNN. 2009. “China: 70 Ill from Tainted Pig Organs,” February 23. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/22/china.poisonings/index.html (accessed September 22, 2010).Google Scholar
Demick, Barbara. 2011. “In China, What You Eat Tells Who You Are.” Los Angeles Times, September 16. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/16/world/la-fg-china-elite-farm-20110917 (accessed September 18, 2011).Google Scholar
Ekberg, Merryn. 2007. “The Parameters of the Risk Society: A Review and Exploration.” Current Sociology 55(3):343–66.Google Scholar
Ellis, Linden, and Turner, Jennifer. 2007. “Food Safety: Where We Stand in China,” December 18. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/food-safety-where-we-stand-china (accessed February 26, 2012).Google Scholar
Gale, Fred, and Buzby, Jean C.. 2009. “Imports from China and Food Safety Issues.” Economic Information Bulletin, no. 52, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1998. “Risk Society: The Context of British Politics.” In The Politics of Risk Society, ed. Franklin, Jane, 23–24. Cambridge, England: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bing, Hu. 1982. “Chi zhimagao yinqi de yichang fengbo” [An incident caused by the consumption of sesame cake]. Zhongguo shipin [Chinese food] 5: 21.Google Scholar
Jensen, Karsten Klint, and Sandøe, Peter. 2002. “Food Safety and Ethics: The Interplay between Science and Values.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 15(3): 245–53.Google Scholar
Jiang, Gaoming. 2007. “The Truth about Dead Chickens,” June 14. http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1096-The-truth-about-dead-chickens (accessed February 26, 2012).Google Scholar
Li, Peter J. 2009. “Exponential Growth, Animal Welfare, Environmental and Food Safety Impact: The Case of China's Livestock Production.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 22(3): 217–40.Google Scholar
Lin, Yi-Chieh Jessica. 2009. “Knockoff: A Cultural Biography of Transnational Counterfeit Goods.” PhD diss., Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Liu, Peng. 2010. “Tracing and Periodizing China's Food Safety Regulation: A Study on China's Food Safety Regime Change.” Regulation & Governance 4(2): 244–60.Google Scholar
Lora-Wainwright, Anna. 2009. “Of Farming Chemicals and Cancer Deaths: The Politics of Health in Contemporary Rural China.” Social Anthropology 17(1): 56–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zongshu, Lü, Qing, Zhang, Yang, Zhu, and Nianzu, Shen. 2011. “Zhongguo ‘tegong’ shipin gongyingshang buwanquan mingdan” [An incomplete list of suppliers of special (safe) foods in China]. Nanfang zhoumo [Southern weekend], May 6. http://www.21ccom.net/articles/zgyj/gqmq/2011/0506/34946.html (accessed February 26, 2012).Google Scholar
McKenna, Maryn. 2011. “China Pig Crisis: Drug Residues in Pork,” Wired, March 26. http://m.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/03/china-pig-crisis/ (accessed April 5, 2011).Google Scholar
Ministry of Commerce. 2008. “The 2008 Report on Food Safety in the Circulation Domain.” http://www.doc88.com/p-996294821399.html (accessed May 2, 2011).Google Scholar
Moore, Malcolm. 2010. “China Goes Organic after Scandal of Cooking Oil from Sewers.” The Telegraph, August 30. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7971983/China-goes-organic-after-scandal-of-cooking-oil-from-sewers.html (accessed October 28, 2010).Google Scholar
Xiurui, Mou, ed. 2007. “Lianghui yu baixing (3): Shiping anquan zhi you heshi chengwei qiren you tian” [Worries about food safety: When is it unfounded?]. Zhongguo shiping anquan wang [China food safety net], March 14. http://www.ce.cn/cysc/sp/info/200703/14/t20070314_10686083.shtml (accessed August 27, 2010).Google Scholar
Nestle, Marion. 2010. Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety, 2nd ed.Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Pawsey, Rosa K. 2000. “Food and Its Safety.” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 16(2): 192–200.Google Scholar
Siqing, Peng. 2003. “Wo ping shenmo xinren ni?” [Why should I trust you?]. In Zhongguo shehui zhong de xinren [Trust in Chinese society], eds. Yefu, Zheng and Siqing, Peng, 292–301. Beijing: Zhongguo chengshi chubanshe.Google Scholar
Smith, David F. 2007. “Food Panics in History: Corned Beef, Typhoid and ‘Risk Society.’” Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 61(7): 566–70.Google Scholar
Ruixing, Sun. 1980. “Ershinian shiwu zhongdu de qingkuang fenxi” [An analysis of the causes of food poisoning in the past twenty years]. Jiangsu Yixue 7: 4–5.Google Scholar
Tam, Waikeung, and Yang, Dali L.. 2005. “Food Safety and the Development of Regulatory Institutions in China.” Asian Perspective 29(4): 5–36.Google Scholar
Thiers, Paul. 1997. “Pesticides in China: Policy and Practice.” Pesticide Outlook 8(1): 6–10.Google Scholar
Thiers, Paul. 2003. “Risk Society Comes to China: SARS, Transparency and Public Accountability.” Asian Perspective 27(2): 241–51.Google Scholar
Veeck, Ann, Yu, Hongyan, and Burns, Alvin C.. 2008. “Food Safety, Consumer Choice, and the Changing Marketplace in Urban China.” In Papers of the 33rd Annual Macromarketing Conference, 39–44. Clemson, S.C.: Macromarketing Society, Inc.Google Scholar
Jinfu, Wang. 1975. “Ziboshi shisinian shiwu zhongdu fenxi” [An analysis of food poisoning during the past fourteen years in Zibo City]. Shandong Yixue 4: 15–18.Google Scholar
Liming, Wang. 2004. “Qinli Xianghe dujiucai jinjing” [Experiencing the arrival of poisonous chives from Xianghe]. Zhongguo zhiliang wanglixing zazhi [Journal of quality supervision in China] 4: 22–26.Google Scholar
Wang, Shaoguang. 2003. “The Problem of State Weakness.” Journal of Democracy 14(1): 36–42.Google Scholar
Wang, Shijie, Duan, Huili, Zhang, Wei, and Li, Jun-Wen. 2007. “Analysis of Bacterial Foodborne Disease Outbreaks in China between 1994 and 2005.” FEMS Immunology and Medical Microbiology 51(1): 8–13.Google Scholar
Watts, Jonathan. 2011. “Exploding Watermelons Put Spotlight on Chinese Farming Practices.” The Guardian, May 17. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/17/exploding-watermelons-chinese-farming (accessed February 26, 2012).Google Scholar
Yuzhen, Xia and Yadan, Wu. 2007. “Zhongguo zheng jinru fengxian shehui shidai” [China entering an era of risk society]. Gansu shehui kexue [Social sciences in Gansu] 1: 20–24.Google Scholar
Yan, Yunxiang. 2009. “The Good Samaritan's New Trouble: A Study of the Changing Moral Landscape in Contemporary China.” Social Anthropology 17(1): 9–24.Google Scholar
Yan, Yunxiang. 2010. “The Chinese Path to Individualization.” British Journal of Sociology 61(3):489–512.Google Scholar
Yang, Yang. 2007. “A China Environmental Health Project Factsheet: Pesticides and Environmental Health Trends in China.” February 28. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/topics/docs/pesticides_feb28.pdf (accessed June 1, 2011).Google Scholar
Yoo, Yungsuk Karen. 2010. “Tainted Milk: What Kind of Justice for Victims' Families in China?” Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 33(2): 555–75.Google Scholar
Guining, Zhang and Shifu, Chen. 1961. “Zhuhuoluan shamenshijun shiwu zhongdu ganran de liuxing bingxue diaocha baogao” [An epidemic report on food poisoning caused by Salmonella cholerae]. Shandong yixue [Shandong medical journal] 5: 12–15.Google Scholar
Zhang, Wenxia, and Yandong, Zhao. n.d. “Beijing Citizens' Perception of Risk on Food Safety.” http://www.kent.ac.uk/scarr/events/beijingpapers/WenxiaYandong.pdf (accessed May 31, 2011).Google Scholar
Xiaofang, Zhang. 2007. “Shipin anquan yu hexie shehui” [Food safety and harmonious society], MA thesis, School of Philosophy and Sociology, Shanxi University.Google Scholar
Qing, Zhou. 2007. Min yi heshi weitian: Zhongguo shipin anquan xianzhuang diaocha [What kind of god: A survey of the current safety of China's food]. Beijing: Zhongguo gongren chubanshe.Google Scholar
Shunan, Zhou. 1958. “Nongcunzhong fasheng shiwu zhongdu de yuanyin yu yufang” [Causes of food poisoning and prevention in rural China]. Zhongguo yikan [Chinese medical journal] 1: 25–27.Google Scholar
Wei, Zou. 2011. “Gong'anbu gongbu 2010 nian quanguo shida shipin anquan fanzui dianxing anli” [Ministry of Public Security publicizes the ten typical criminal cases of food safety in 2010], Xinhua News Agency. March 22. http://www.gov.cn/jrzg/2011-03/22/content_1829610.htm (accessed June 1, 2011).Google Scholar
Zwart, Hub. 2000. “A Short History of Food Ethics.” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 12(2): 113–26.Google Scholar