Crisis of Honesty in China is Costing More Than Just the Loss of its Global Markets

By Zhong Yan in China

(Clearwisdom.net) On August 3, the question of the day on the CTV website was, "Given the latest product safety concerns, is it time to reassess our trade policies with China?" Ninety-four percent of the 9,039 participants checked "Yes." (CTV is one of Canada's major national television networks)

Problematic products from China have filled newspaper headlines around the world lately -- everything from cardboard-filled buns, chemically-produced eggs, fake tea leaves, poisonous fruits, toothpastes, and toys, to pork from disease-ridden pigs, poisonous barley, and feces-marinated tofu. The U.S. has banned some seafood from China. The world is changing its trade policies with China to stop its dangerous products from sneaking into their countries.

Usually, export products meet higher quality standards than products consumed domestically. This is the norm in many countries. If China's export products have such serious safety violations, then what about products sold in China? A friend of mine from China said that every time he goes to a restaurant, he tells himself, "The worst would be that I die from what I eat," as he puts food into his mouth.

Counterfeit and inferior products from China poison the body. Lies and fabricated news from China's media does the same to our minds. The most typical case is that of Xinhua News Agency, the CCTV, and People's Daily making up various news stories in recent years to suppress Falun Gong. One of the biggest phony news pieces is the "Tiananmen Self-immolation." In order to create the news, Jiang Zemin, former leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), mobilized the military, the police and special agents to set it up. However, the news was so carelessly put together that professional news experts found it full of flaws. For instance, right before the self immolation took place, police officers were patrolling Tiananmen with fire extinguishers in their hands; a little girl with second degree burns in her throat sang a song on TV right after her surgery, and a severe burn patient was wrapped up like a mummy instead of letting the skin breathe. Anyone with any common sense who tried to understand the events would see that the incident was staged.

Reporters who dare to expose problems in Chinese society often face tremendous pressure from the government. Police arrested Zi Beijia and five other reporters from Beijing Television (BTV) for "fabricating news" and detained them on criminal charges. BTV even apologized to the public. The media in China has lost its ability to monitor government and society and has become a political propaganda machine for the CCP. This worsens the crisis of honesty in China.

People who live in an environment full of lies and deceit become numb to it after a while. However, their minds deteriorate and drag down the level of honesty in society even more. The product safety issue underscores the honesty crisis in China. It also exposes the CCP's efforts to denounce and demean basic human values and morality, and has caused China to lose its global market and planted potential crisis in Chinese society.

Only disintegrating the CCP would do the job of recovering China's traditional values and reverse the multitude of crises in Chinese society today.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/8/6/160252.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version