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BEIJING: China is blaming the country's food-safety woes on sensationalist US media even as it announced new seizures of suspect American imports, state press reported on Monday.
"Some foreign media, especially those based in the US, have wantonly reported on so-called unsafe Chinese products. They are turning white to black," the China Daily quoted Li Changjiang, head of the country's quality-control watchdog, as saying.
"If some food products are below standard, you can't say all the country's food is unsafe," said Li, minister of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.
Chinese officials initially blamed foreign media as mounting reports of fake, shoddy or dangerous goods emerged in recent months, but more recently have acknowledged the problem and vowed to take action.
But officials have gone back on the offensive, the newspaper said, with the administration's top communist party official, Li Chuanqing, suggesting that some foreign business interests were behind a campaign "to exaggerate the fear of substandard Chinese product."
Reports in the United States of tainted goods ranging from toxic pet foods to poisonous toothpaste have led to a spate of recalls and bans there.
In response, China has announced a series of seizures of US imports on safety grounds in moves widely seen as retaliatory.
In the latest action, China has seized US protein powder it said contained excessive amounts of the potentially toxic chemical selenium, Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.
That follows the announcement on Friday that China had suspended imports of frozen chicken feet, pig ears and other animal parts from 10 companies in the US, Vietnam and the Philippines after inspectors found traces of chemicals and dangerous bacteria. – AFP/ac
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