Whats the big deal?

But I agree that this is an example of the mainland exporting a problem to a better organized better governed region.

Hey Hong Kongers, hows that 1 country 2 systems thing working for you lol

Why should HK people have to bear the brunt of the governance mess in China? And why should Chinese consumers have domestic unsafe goods AND high tariffs on safe foreign imports?

So who wins here? Well, we know who always wins, and that’s the gov’t and the SOEs. Too bad they benefit by poisoning their own people…

For those of you arguing free market blah blah blah, how is it any different from the “free market” of hospital beds for women?

Still, its a great example of how China’s internal problems ‘leak out’ and affect other countries. Fascinating.

I lol’d at this. Absolutely ridiculous. Yes, the Chinese are plundering worldwide baby food resources, but who wouldn’t if it’s your kid’s life at stake. The solution is very simple; the USA should start producing trillions of dollars worth of milk powder, which it can then sell to China, so the trade deficit disappears.

Alternatively Chinese domestic producers could take their heads out of their asses and focus on a little thing called quality. On top of that Chinese officials could take their dongs out of their mistresses wongs and actually enforce food safety regulations. But I don’t see that happening any time soon.

If I were a Chinese investor now, I’d pump big bucks in a Dutch/German baby powder conglomerate such as Nutricia/Friso. There will always be babies and concerned parents, and the only investment question you have to ask yourself is; will China get their domestic milk not only clean by nature but also clean by reputation? I don’t see that happening in the next 10 years.

” It is because we mainlanders cannot even have access to some safe food for their beloved babies! Yea that’s pathetic.”

No, whats pathetic is that you have let it go on for so long and its not getting better. Do something about it for fuuks sakes!

This coupled with all the other food scandals and a crumbling faith in anything the Gov does or say regarding the environment and public health mixed in with a dash of new parent angest over their little cerub leads to a huge demand for “trusted” imported milk.

The Chinese Gov impose heavy import taxes on goods they see as luxuries or challenge their home industries. Milk powder is on the list. Thus high domestic prices for imported milk and the rush to buy overseas.

The reason everyone gets so angry about all of this is that what is an internal problem is now being exported to other regions. As HK is the closest and easiest to access we are feeling the brunt of this desparate demand.

The real kicker here is while the Chinese Goverment has not done much to allie the publics trust in food saftey they have also not reduce duty on Milk imports thus denying their population a safe alternative for their kids and an afordable price.

BTW most HK people here don’t want swarms of mainlanders either buying milk or luxury hand bags. They clog up the limited infrastructure here and the benefit is accrued mainly to the landlords. We had over 20 million visitors from the mainland last year, our population is 7 million, last year the entire USA has around 44 million visitors. Go figure.

Oh and TGT, yep you never bought milk powder here but you live here, QED you don’t have kids. The issue here is not that anyone wants to deny mainlanders their right to spend “real” money. (Is the RMB real money the current account is closed?) Its the fact that their spending is having an unwelcome social cost to the majority and a welcome benefit to the elite capital owners.

there are 3 reasons why this problem exists as I see it:
1. simple arbitrage: as one of the commenter pointed out, distributors of many products in chinese retail operations are overcharging for everything from milk to iphones to whatever else. so if it is cheaper to actually take the trouble to go and buy or have something mailed from another place than buying it locally then people will do it. this si also why we have things like medical tourism. this is also why people from HK have invested in China because they thought it was in part more affordable and could get a better return on investment.
2. either the continued lack of efficient food safety controls or at the very least the lasting impact of past food scandals on China’s psyche
3. the one child policy! as sea horse pointed out, there are people who lover their kids. i dare to go further and say that very few people don’t. but i think that what we have in a society where there is only one child, is a situation where fears and hopes are multiplied because of the fact that there are far less economic restraints. if you had 3, 4 or 5 kids then the cost – benefit analysis would be a bit different. people would perhaps look at things differently and think that maybe milk bought in china made by nestle or the like is actually ok.

lastly and another issue is that maybe the solution is for people to follow doctors advice. Breast feeding is best and healthiest. in chinese hospitals, milk powder is actually forbidden except if a doctor has authorized it. there are several reasons for this including probably nutritional ones but i think the biggest unspoken reason and one which should make everyone pause is water quality. you can have the best milk powder but if you mix it with water that is not great then it sorts of defeats the point.