China's Campaign Against Lawyers

Zhou Shifeng at his trial in No. 2 Tianjin Intermediate People's Court

Rule of law is when the prosecution and defense each have access to legal representation and the judge is impartial until he or she hears the arguments for both sides.

But in China, or apparently in President Xi Jinping's version of rule of law, lawyers who try to launch class action lawsuits, particularly against the state are considered subversive.

That was the case of Zhou Shifeng, the former director of a Beijing law firm who was convicted of subversion and sentenced to seven years in jail. He pleaded guilty and even pledged not to appeal after a hearing that lasted less than three hours in Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People's Court yesterday.

Fengrui law firm represented Chen Guangcheng

Fengrui law firm was headed by Zhou and employed nearly 100 lawyers at its peak, handling mostly sensitive cases.

It represented victims of the melamine-contaminated milk formula scandal in 2008, dissident artist Ai Weiwei, blind legal rights activist Chen Guangcheng, rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, and Uygur academic Ilham Tohti.

It's an impressive line-up of clients from a western point of view, but in China it's only a matter of time before the state goes after you for representing these "troublemakers".

But every defendant needs legal representation, so who will give them a fighting chance? And for the melamine milk scandal, surely those families are entitled to fight for compensation and jail for those who sickened or killed their babies?

A baby receiving hospital care after drinking melamine milk

However this is China, and during the hearing, two witnesses claimed Zhou tried to use sensitive cases to foster public resentment of the Party and the government.

Prosecutors accused Zhou of "being influenced for a long time by the infiltration of anti-China forces and gradually developing the idea of overturning the country's current political system".

A prosecutor read out a written statement by Zhou in court that apparently said: "I have attracted the interest of foreign consulates and NGOs... Their ultimate goal is to overturn the leadership of the Communist Party."

Amnesty International said Zhou's conviction and that of rights advocate Zhai Yanmin an attempt by the central government to "silence anyone who raises legitimate questions about human rights and uses the legal system to seek redress".

Fengrui has also represented dissident artist Ai Weiwei

"This wave of trials against lawyers and activists is a political charade. Their fate was sealed before they stepped into the courtroom," said Roseann Rife, East Asia Research Director for Amnesty International.

Civil society is crumbling, making it harder for anyone to have any kind of disagreement or ability to question what the government does.

Zhou has accepted his fate, but others cannot. How can China realize its dream of having a harmonious society when lawyers can't defend rule of law?

A Horrific Escalator Ride

Do you dare to take an escalator in China these days?

It was shocking to read last week about a woman in Jingzhou, Hubei province who died after being swallowed up by an escalator in a shopping mall. It turns out the metal panel was loose and so the 30-year-old mother fell in, but she was able to push her two-year-old son to safety.

Two female employees caught on video got on the escalator before Xiang Liujian and they felt the panel was loose and managed to escape. They were discussing the problem at the top of the escalator, but did nothing to warn Xiang about the metal plate, watching her fall in.

There are reports the video footage is gruesome, and it took workers several hours to recover her body, or parts of it...

And now a cleaner in a Shanghai mall has had part of his leg amputated after it got caught in an escalator yesterday.

Xiang falls into the escalator as she pushes her son to safety

The 35-year-old was cleaning the escalator when his leg got stuck in the section where the stairs meet the metal plate. Although the escalator stopped immediately, his calf was so severely injured that doctors had no choice but to amputate the leg.

An investigation is underway.

In the case of Xiang, investigators have found the three floor plates were poorly designed, and so they got loose and tilted easily. They also found the size of the plates did not match the original designs and were loosely fitted.

The manufacturer, Suzhou Shenlong Elevator Company, was accused of poor quality control and officials have ordered all of its machines that are used across the province to stop service and have safety checks carried out.

The mall was also found not to have taken proper emergency measures after its staff discovered the escalator was faulty.

Escalators are common place in Chinese cities -- now everyone must be worried about getting on and off one. Are they all safe? Is Suzhou Shenlong Elevator Company the only firm in the whole of China that may have cut corners?

This brings back memories of the scandal of melamine-laced powder milk in 2008, where at least six babies died and tens of thousands of babies and toddlers had serious health problems.

Adding melamine to the thin milk helped boost the protein levels of the powdered milk on paper, but what did it do in the end? Why are people still chasing profits instead of aiming for the goal of quality products?

The horrific elevator death drags China back to the stereotypical belief that things made in the Middle Kingdom are shoddily made, without caring for people's safety and well-being.

Will we see a full transparent investigation? Will the culprits be punished? It's not just those who installed the escalator, but also the company's executives who allowed shoddy workmanship to go ahead, and the mall's management for not having emergency plans in place for escalators malfunctioning.

In the meantime what about the husband and son? What kind of legal recourse will they have?

Time will tell if justice will be served.

Another Food Scandal

The fast-food restaurant had been serving bad meat processed in Shanghai

McDonald's has been in crisis mode since Sunday when Shanghai broadcaster Dragon TV reported that meat supplier Husi reprocessed and repackaged old beef and chicken and put new expiration dates on them.

Not only were they sold to the fast-food restaurant with the golden arches, but also KFC and Pizza Hut.

Owned by Illinois-based OSI Group, Husi has a plant in Shanghai that is at the centre of the scandal.

Not only are McDonald's outlets in China affected, but also in Hong Kong.

What made it worse was that McDonald's Hong Kong first denied it imported any food products from the Shanghai plant, but then yesterday apologized for the "confusion" and said the food served from now on in the city was not from Shanghai Husi.

The Hong Kong government had earlier announced an immediate ban of the import and sales of products from Husi Food Company.

Assistant director of food and environmental hygiene Dr Lee Siu-yuen stated that any Husi food already in Hong Kong would be sealed and stored in warehouses.

The fast-food restaurant had been importing cooked chicken leg meat from Husi's Shanghai plant since May, and from July to December last year it had imported 10 batches of frozen pork from Shanghai Husi.

There are concerns the meat also made its way to Japan, where McDonald's there said 20 percent of its meat for chicken nuggets was supplied by Husi.

Meanwhile OSI Group chief executive officer Sheldon Lavin apologized to "all of our customers in China". He said the incident "was terribly wrong" and "I am appalled that it ever happened in the company that I own".

So far five Husi executives have been questioned by Shanghai police. Surely charges will follow.

This incident clearly demonstrates that six years on, the Chinese government still has not set up an effective accountability system to ensure food products produced on the mainland are safe to eat.

There was such a huge uproar in July 2008 following the melamine milk scandal in which at least six infants died and hundreds of thousands more became ill from drinking powdered milk laced with melamine to make the milk seem like it had higher protein content, but in fact was just watered-down milk.

This resulted in over 300,000 children with malnutrition and kidney damage.

Beijing promised to set up 800 testing centres around the country, 80 of which are dedicated to food.

But because there are so many small producers, the government doesn't have enough inspectors to go around. And even then some may be easily corrupted by bribes.

As a result China's already precarious food quality reputation is at risk again and one wonders when the country will get its act together. As others have said before -- you can sell us cheap clothing and shoes, but contaminated food is where we draw the line.

Perhaps the upside is that people won't be eating at McDonald's for a while, but also it has forced the public to question where their food comes from and do restaurants really check on their suppliers.

Not only is the Chinese government to blame, but so is OSI Group and Lavin for not knowing what was going on in the Shanghai plant. Since when is it OK to reprocess rotten meat? Not only is it a health issue, but also morally wrong.

And then for McDonald's Hong Kong to flip flop on such a serious issue demonstrates its unwillingness to deal with the problem, or it too is unsure of where all its food products come from.

Fast-food restaurants seem to have a disconnect when it comes to food quality -- it's not just about the bottom line anymore.

The public cannot afford to eat bad food.

Poorly Made in China

Very interesting read on manufacturing in China

A friend of mine lent me a book he thought I'd be interested in reading and he was definitely right. Called Poorly Made in China: An Insider's Account of the China Production Game by Paul Midler, it follows his time working in South China with both American companies and Chinese manufacturers.

The book is a fast read, mostly because it is clearly written and has good analogies to help layman readers understand the Chinese way of doing business, and more particularly, their mindset.

As an American fluent in Putonghua, Midler acts as the middleman in many business deals and has seen how they play out. One of the examples he gives throughout the book is Johnson Carter getting King Chemical to produce soap products to sell to retailers in the United States.

It's interesting to see the process from the beginning, how Johnson Carter thinks it is getting a good deal, having its products made in China, but little does the representative, Bernie know how the Chinese mind thinks. That is, things aren't always as they seem.

And for Midler it's an eye-opener to see how factories work -- how they really make their money.

In the beginning the manufacturer appears to bend over backwards to get the client, but once contracts are secured and production begins, the scheming begins. Clients wonder how manufacturers make money, but through patience and time they do, as paramount leader Deng Xiaoping once suggested, "crossing the river by feeling the stones".

Author Paul Midler who gives some insight into China

The manufacturers gently poke and push and prod their clients to see where their weaknesses are and from there begin to figure out how to take advantage of them. In some cases it's lower quality packaging or even the content of the soap for Johnson Carter is diluted -- but only if it's noticed.

It's this cutting corners that led to food safety scandals, like the melamine scandal in pet food in 2007 Midler talked about, but he didn't go into the even bigger controversy the following year when thousands of babies and children being sick and at least six died from melamine found in milk powder.

Some manufacturers feign ignorance, while others must have known what they were doing, but not necessarily what the health risks would be. This is China's biggest dilemma -- where a number of people and companies put profits before morality.

Even now six years after the melamine milk scandal, food quality cannot be guaranteed, which is why Hong Kong is the destination of choice for mainlanders to buy food products they deem to be safe.

Midler also gives examples of foreigners who think they can be successful by replicating what they've done elsewhere, or that they have no sense that mutual trust and benefit don't exist in China. In both cases they fail miserably.

At the end of the book he hints that when the Most Favored Nation status for China was debated in Congress, the Clinton administration should not have delinked economic and political reforms; Midler believes that if the United States held out for greater reforms, things may have been much different than they are today.

And so we are now stuck with the situation we are in now, where China and the US need each other desperately with no end in sight.

Reading this book made me think twice about all the products I use, particularly shampoo and soap, and wonder if it's legit, because in the end it's the consumers who bear the consequences of bad manufacturing in China... Scary thought!

Trying to Milk Political Points

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key with Chinese President Xi Jinping

Chinese President Xi Jinping is at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Nusa Dua, Indonesia along with many other top leaders in the region. Most notably absent is American President Barack Obama due to the government shut down. Secretary of State John Kerry came in his place instead, but was relegated to the back in the photo call.

It's pretty telling how the US shutdown is perceived elsewhere...

Meanwhile, Xi hasn't been let off the hook easily by the citizens of his own country when he took the opportunity to berate New Zealand Prime Minister John Key about food safety.

According to Xinhua, Xi reminded Key that food safety mattered to people's health and "urged New Zealand to take tough measures to ensure food quality and thus maintain the sound momentum of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries".

People back in China are inundated with monthly reports on domestic food scandals and so for Xi to say this resulted in a collective face-palm.

"The entire country is laughing," wrote a Sina Weibo user.

Xi said this after New Zealand's largest dairy exporter Fonterra had some of its products banned in China earlier this year because of concerns over bacterial contamination. This resulted in extensive recalls, that impacted the New Zealand dollar and caused Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings to issue an apology.

But can we point out the Chinese domestic dairy industry is in an even worse situation?

Five years after melamine was found in baby milk powder after the Beijing Olympics where at least six children died, China still hasn't sorted out the industry, streamlining how raw milk is collected to pasteurized and then distributed. It also hasn't enforced inspections and established an effective system of checks and balances.

More importantly the lack of trust in the government has meant parents continue to go outside of China to buy milk powder, creating havoc in their demand for above board food for their babies.

So why does Xi even dare to castigate New Zealand?

It's a political ploy everyone can see right through.