Giftskandalen i Kina er et eksempel på hvordan gjennomsiktigheten i et moderne samfunn kan forandre maktforholdene. Folk kan holde ut utrolig mye urettferdighet og korrupsjon, men ved barna går det en grense. Skandalen kan true kommunistpartiets makt.

Det er interessant å studere hvordan melkeprodukter, sjokolade osv. ble tilsatt melamin. Skandalen skyldes ikke en ulykke eller enkeltpersoner som var grådige. Den er systemisk, og på hvert eneste nivå gjentar det seg: Partiet er mer opptatt av å beskytte sin makt og fasade enn av folkets ve og vel. I Kina har man en forestilling om at myndighetene må ha et mandat fra himmelen. Den dagen folket føler at partiet har forspilt mandatet, er det ille ute.

Myndighetene fikk meldinger om at noe var galt med babymelken på vårparten, men var kun opptatt av å dysse ned saken. Ingenting måtte ødelegge for OL. Bloggere ble stanset og avisredaktører sensurert.

Fu Jianfeng, an editor at one of China’s leading independent publications, Southern Weekend, recently used a personal blog to describe how his newsweekly discovered cases of sickened children in July — two months before the scandal became public — but could not publish articles so close to the Games.

«As a news editor, I was deeply concerned,» Mr. Fu wrote on Sept. 14. «I had realized that this was a large public health disaster, but I was not able to send reporters to do reporting.»

For et år siden var det en tilsvarende skandale, og myndighetene laget stor ståhei for å gi inntrykk av opprydning. Et kontrollsystem ble implementert. Men det avisene ikke har fått lov å fortelle, er at et av de verste selskapene i giftskandalen, Sanlu Group, var unntatt fra inspeksjon.

Officials now acknowledge that China’s leading dairy companies — including the Sanlu Group, the worst offender in the scandal — were exempted from mandatory government inspections. In hindsight, inspections might not have mattered: in May, the government’s top food quality agency rated dairy companies among the safest producers in China’s food industry, reporting that 99 percent of them passed safety inspections for their infant milk formula. Now, the government says that 22 dairy companies, including export brands like Mengniu and Yili, have produced powdered baby formula that contains traces of melamine.

Det er et altfor nært forhold mellom inspektørene og selskapene, og når pressen ikke får drive avsløring, blir korrupsjon resultatet.

But the essential relationship between regulators and industry seems unchanged. Some dairy farmers interviewed this week in Hebei Province said it was an open secret that milk was adulterated, although many claimed they did not know that melamine was being used. Some dairies routinely watered down milk to increase profits, then added other cheap ingredients so the milk could pass a protein test.

«Before melamine, the dealers added rice porridge or starch into the milk to artificially boost the protein count, but that method was easily tested as fake, so they switched to melamine,» said Zhao Huibin, a dairy farmer near Shijiazhuang.

Mr. Zhao said quality testers at Sanlu took bribes from farmers and milk dealers in exchange for looking the other way on milk adulterated with melamine. «In this business, bribery keeps everyone silent,» he said.

Innsyn

Men mye er annerledes i Kina. Flere aktører deltar, moderniseringen har endret folks bevissthet. Konsulentselskaper som studerer kinesiske forbruksmønstre, kan også si noe om hvorfor markedet ikke fungerer som det skal. Det finnes ingen uavhengig kontrollmekanisme. Derfor blir ikke overtramp oppdaget eller påtalt.

«These after-the-fact administrative measures miss the point,» wrote Arthur Kroeber, managing director of the Beijing-based consultancy, Dragonomics, in a recent note to clients. He said the problem was rooted in the Communist Party’s continued involvement in pricing control, company management and the flow of information.

«The party views control of all three as necessary to its rule,» he added. «Further major scandals are thus inevitable.»

The structure of the Sanlu Group, which keeps its headquarters in this gritty industrial city, is a case in point. The Hebei Province Communist Party appointed the company’s chairwoman, who was also a party official. Meanwhile, city officials in Shijiazhuang are now accused of helping cover up the problem rather than trying to warn the public.

Det er interessant at man sporer problemets kjerne tilbake til partiets monopolmakt. Et fritt marked kan ikke utvikle seg når samme instans sitter på alle taburettene.

Men en ny faktor er de utenlandske selskapene som har kjøpt seg inn i Kina. Hva gjør de?

For Sanlu, a pivotal moment came on Aug. 2 when company officials informed the board about the melamine problem. Sanlu is a joint venture with the New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra. Fonterra owns a 43 percent share and has three members on the board. Fonterra’s executives say their representatives immediately pushed for a public recall at the board meeting, only to be overruled by the rest of the board.

Sanlu had first received complaints about its powdered baby formula last December, according to state media. By March, the company had hired private companies to test its milk powder for contaminants. Yet Sanlu never issued any public warnings and never stopped promoting its products. On May 18, days after the devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, the company made a much-publicized donation of $1.25 million worth of baby formula for infants orphaned or displaced by the catastrophe.

Et vestlig selskap kan ikke være deleier i et firma som forgifter kundene. Det sier mye om Kina at noe slikt i det hele tatt er mulig.

Det var New Zealand som varslet myndighetene i Beijing om at noe måtte skje, og i Beijing lot man som om dette var helt nytt.

The problem was finally exposed in September when the New Zealand government, after discussions with Fonterra executives, contacted authorities in Beijing. Beijing officials say they knew nothing about the scandal until September, though a Fonterra company spokesman said the company believed the central government knew in August.

I skyggen av finanskrisen er det verdt å få med seg dette lærestykket i hvordan et marked fungerer. Ledelsen i Kina har fått noe å tenke på. Korrupsjonen har fått følbare virkninger på folks tillit, og ikke minist internasjonale selskaper og internasjonale markeder. Hvem vil spise kinesiskprodusert mat eller slikkeri etter dette? I fjor var det hundefor og leker, nå er det melkeprodukter som inngår i en rekke matvarer.

Noen går så langt som til å mene at hvis ikke Kina rydder opp i korrupsjonen, hvilket vi si å skape maktinstanser uavhengig av partiet, vil Kina ikke bli den verdensmakten det drømmer om.

Despite Warnings, China’s Regulators Failed to Stop Tainted Milk