Public outrage is mounting in China over allegations that a major state-owned food company has been cutting costs by using the same tankers to carry fuel and cooking oil – without cleaning them in between.

The scandal, which implicates China’s largest grain storage and transport company Sinograin, and private conglomerate Hopefull Grain and Oil Group, has raised concerns of food contamination in a country rocked in recent decades by a string of food and drug safety scares – and evoked harsh criticism from Chinese state media.

It was an “open secret” in the transport industry that the tankers were doing double duty, according to a report in the state-linked outlet Beijing News last week, which alleged that trucks carrying certain fuel or chemical liquids were also used to transport edible liquids such as cooking oil, syrup and soybean oil, without proper cleaning procedures.

  • pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online
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    4 months ago

    It’s a shame when China takes things more seriously than the western world.

    Like, a there’s a million reasons to hate them, but how they deal with companies endangering lives isn’t one of them.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Kind of. It depends on how egregious it is. Companies endangering lives by pitting melamine in mile - jail. Foxconn endangering lives by overworking people in work camps - 👨‍🦯

      But I definitely give you that some of the more egregious cases are taken more seriously than in the west.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Oh, Foxconn again. a) Suicide rates of Foxconn workers match that of Mainland university students (and is way lower than the overall average but that would compare the young often male workers against elderly rural ladies) and b) it’s a Taiwanese company.

        Don’t get me wrong though they’re still awful but they’re not that awful. Also they’re pulling out of China, wages are getting too high.

    • Victor@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’m on the fence about whether it matters or not, that they might only do so to politically save face. ⚖️

      • Nora@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        At least they save face… Wouldn’t mind some more face saving over here.

        • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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          4 months ago

          If all you save is face, THEN YOU HAVE SAVED NOTHING. What do you mean we don’t do this over here, this is all we fucking do. We don’t solve problems, we just market them.

          • Nora@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            I can’t recall any other countries executing their rich for things like this. Can you?

            Especially in the west. In the west they just take a part of their profits as a trivial fine.

            • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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              4 months ago

              I can’t have a conversation with someone advocating murder and wondering why I’m not impressed.

              • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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                4 months ago

                Advocating the death penalty for people who’ve committed mass social murder is not murder.

                White collar crime like this is the only case where the death penalty might be useful, since these people actually do a risk-benefit analysis.

    • Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip
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      4 months ago

      the flip side is they tend to take court cases involving individuals less seriously. Rulings are designed to be done in a quick manner and reletively speaking, cam be harsh with sentences. Culturally they care more for someone possibly related(but not guaranteed to be) get punished over verifying if said person is actually guilty of something.

      its a system thats good if said perpetrator is caught fast, but terrible for the person who just happened to be there at the wrong time if a perp gets away.

      tl;dr swift justice, but dont take as many precautions on whether they got the right person or not.

      • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        China just straight up doesn’t prosecute if they don’t have to, and when they do it’s typically following a civil law system that’s generally easier to prosecute than common law. It’s the same reason why Japan has a prosecution success rate of over 99.8%.

        • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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          4 months ago

          Japan has a rate that high because MacArthur was a quasi-fascist who half assed reconstruction and they don’t have the judicial concept of innocent until proven guilty.