China defends food safety at Asian security summit19:04,...

China defends food safety at Asian security summit
19:04, Wednesday, August 01, 2007

By John Ruwitch

MANILA, Aug 1 (Reuters) - China's foreign minister was forced
to defend the "made-in-China" label on Wednesday, as the safety
of Chinese food dominated talks with western officials on the eve
of Asia-Pacific's largest security summit.

Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told U.S. Deputy Secretary of
State John Negroponte that Beijing did not want a string of
recent health scares connected with its exports blown out of
proportion.

"We also oppose politicising the issue of Chinese products,
and oppose trade protectionism and trade discrimination," Yang
was quoted as saying by a foreign ministry spokeswoman.

The United States stepped up inspections of imports from
China after a chemical additive in pet food caused the death of
pets there this spring.

Since then, poisonous ingredients have been found in Chinese
exports of toys, toothpaste and fish, while the deaths of
patients in Panama were blamed on improperly labelled Chinese
chemicals that were mixed into cough syrup.

"China is willing to strengthen cooperation with the United
States in quality testing, quarantine and inspection, and is also
willing to promote with the United States the normal and smooth
development of China-U.S. trade," Yang said.

A U.S. delegation is visiting China this week on a
fact-finding mission on food and drug safety and barely a day
goes past without a new scandal or problem with food or drugs
coming to light in China.

Last month the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned
imports of Chinese farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace and
eel unless their suppliers could prove they were free of certain
veterinary substances, which pose no immediate health risk but
could be a problem in the long run.



NO RICE

China has gained greater prominence at Thursday's ASEAN
Regional Forum due to the absence of U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice.

Climate change, counterterrorism and North Korea's nuclear
programme are also high on the agenda at the gathering, which
brings together the 10-nation Association of South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN) with ministers from elsewhere in Asia, the United
States, Russia, Canada and the European Union.

But hopes of revving up progress on North Korea are muted in
the absence of Rice, who is in the Middle East for talks on Iraq,
and little beyond positive platitudes about recent progress has
so far emerged from talks in the Philippines, which holds the
rotating chairmanship of ASEAN.

Ahead of the summit, countries discussed terror threats as
well as responses to disasters and the outbreak of diseases in
the region.