quoted Hiroshi Saji from Japan's Mizuho Securities Co., who said if the Japanese media continued their negative reports on the issue, the panic they had been creating would damage all imports of the Chinese food and hurt Japanese companies such as Japan Tobacco Inc., the importer of frozen dumplings.

"Without foods from China, some small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan such as restaurants, supermarkets and transportation services will undergo severe impacts," a news report in the International Herald Leader said on February 24. It also pointed out that some groundless reports issued by the Japanese media had prompted negative feelings toward all Chinese products in Japan and that Chinese businesspeople there faced a tough challenge ahead.

When Cui Tiankai, China's Ambassador to Japan, visited an association of overseas Chinese in Japan on February 25, he expressed his concern about the matter and said the government was not only responsible for its 1.3 billion citizens, but also for people around the world who bought food made in China. He also said that both sides should work together to overcome the difficulties they faced and suggested setting up a cooperative mechanism to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. He said he hoped the Japanese media would not report information that had not yet been proven in order to prevent unnecessary panic in Japan.

Tang Chunfeng, an expert from China's Ministry of Commerce, warned that both countries should prevent a possible politicization of the dumpling issue, because inexpensive and competitive Chinese products are always a sensitive topic in Japan. Should more disputes over food security occur between the two nations, China could face a very complicated trade environment, he said.

But Zhu Yan, a Chinese expert at the Japan Fujitsu Research Institute told the International Herald Leader that China remained Japan's most stable and suitable food supplier, so that if the two countries managed to settle the dumpling incident fairly well, their cooperation on a larger scale would not be damaged much.

Both the experts pointed out that the dumpling issue was a wake-up call for China and Japan to improve their food safety controls. They said they believed both governments would take measures to prevent similar situations from occurring again.

Chronology of the Frozen Dumpling Issue

-January 30: Japan informed China that some consumers in Tokushima prefecture got food poisoning after they ate frozen dumplings produced by Hebei Tianyang Food Company. According to the Japanese, the food inspection test results showed traces of the pesticides dichlorvos and methamidophos in frozen dumpling samples.

-January 31: The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) required the local Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau in Hebei to conduct a thorough quarantine inspection of samples of the same batches of frozen dumplings produced on October 1 and 20, 2007, which were exported to Japan. The Hebei bureau said it found no traces of methamidophos in the samples.

-January 31: The AQSIQ checked the frozen dumpling samples a second time and found no traces of methamidophos. It instructed the Hebei Tianyang Food Company to stop producing and exporting dumplings and recall dumplings already exported to Japan and those en route there.

-February 3: The investigating working group dispatched by the Chinese Government arrived in Japan and officially informed the Japanese of their inspection results. The Japanese Health Ministry tested 10 bags of frozen dumplings.

-February 4: A Japanese government investigation team arrived in Beijing. The next day, the group, accompanied by officials and experts from the AQSIQ, went to Hebei Tianyang Food Company, to check all its related food-production lines, workshops, storehouses, quality control system, quarantine system, food material purchasing, shipping and transportation, and finished product transportation processes.

-February 6: The Japanese investigation team held a press conference and said the company workshops were clean and the management of food-production process was standard. They said there was almost no possibility that pesticides had entered the food-production process.

-February 6: The investigating working group dispatched by the Chinese Government instructed the Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine (CAIQ) to inspect the samples it retrieved from Japan, using inspection methods and equipment that both sides agreed upon.

-February 9 and 10: The Japanese said they found slight traces of dichlorvos on the outsides of the frozen dumpling packages from Hebei Tianyang Food Company, which were sold in a Japanese supermarket.

-February 10: The CAIQ’s inspection results showed there was no methamidophos in the samples that the Chinese investigating group retrieved from Japan. After a second thorough inspection, the SIQB said the food company was clean.

-February 14: Japanese officials in Tokushima Prefecture held a press conference and said the traces of dichlorvos found on the dumpling packages came from pesticides inside the supermarket.

-February 28: The AQSIQ and the Ministry of Public Security held a press conference and said the dumpling poisoning incident in Japan had been proved to be an individually contrived case, because there were holes discovered on the poisoned dumpling packages. They said they believe there was little chance that methamidophos was put into the dumplings in China.

(Source: Xinhua News Agency)