issued instructions placing the cases on hold, pending a decision on how to handle the cases in a unified manner. furthermore, that court was instructed not to give any written replies or accept sanlu-related cases in the meantime. criminal prosecutions person crime sentence zhang yujun public endangerment. producing and selling 776 tons of melamine-laced "protein powder". death geng jinping selling and producing toxic food. adding melamine-laced powder to fresh milk and selling to sanlu and other companies death gao junjie making and supplying melamine-laced "protein powder" death (suspended) tian wenhua(former chairwoman of sanlu group) life imprisonment zhang yanzhang, a middleman life imprisonment xue jianzhong(owner of an industrial chemical shop) life imprisonment wang yuliang(former executive of sanlu) 15 years imprisonment xiao yu aiding and abetting her husband gao junjie 5 years imprisonment on the economic root cause stratfor believed that the act of adulterating milk and baby food in full knowledge of potentially severe sanctions, including execution, seemed like "an act of desperation". it noted that in 2008 dairy farmers became squeezed by growing costs of livestock, feed, facilities, and government-imposed price caps. mengniu's share price had fallen 12% since october 2007 because of higher costs of raw milk (due partly to rising costs of cattle feed) and price controls—anti-inflation measures targeted at the dairy sector announced on 16 january. milk suppliers accordingly resorted to subtler cost-cutting methods to preserve diminishing profits. on the damage caused the similarities between china today and new york 150 years ago shouldn't come as a great surprise. adulteration on such a scandalous scale occurs in societies with a toxic combination of characteristics: a fast-growing capitalist economy coupled with a government unable or unwilling to regulate the food supply. in such get-rich-quick societies, there is a huge temptation to tamper with food, particularly when margins are low. the rewards are instant, and it's not always easy for consumers to detect the difference between the pure and the doctored—particularly with a substance like milk, which we have been taught to trust implicitly. bee wilson, the new york times the hopeful news in all this is that in the process of creating so much toxicity both the distressed loans and the distressed food are teaching us important lessons about the limits of scale and regulation that support the massive globalisation of the last decade. we are learning that regulators have lost the ability, if they ever had it, to truly monitor the extent of the danger. david e. gumpert, san francisco chronicle joseph sternberg of the wall street journal said that beijing's failures of food-safety act are "much more pernicious, and disgraceful, than at first it appears ... milk poisoned thousands of infants with melamine, it also poisons the society at large with fear". lawyer bill marler, speaking at a food safety conference in beijing, said that this food scare has harmed the "made in china" brand abroad. he remarked: "if this product had gotten into the united states, it would have been 'game over' for a lot of products in china." an op-ed in the new york times compared this to the "swill milk scandal" in new york in the 1850s in which 8,000 children reportedly died when cows were fed swill and the milk produced was then whitened with plaster of paris, thickened with starch and eggs, and hued with molasses. an article published in the san francisco chronicle likened the regulatory failures of the milk scandal to the distressed assets in the subprime mortgage crisis, and questioned whether regulators in either case ever understood or truly monitored the extent of the danger. louis klarevas, a professor at new york university's center for global affairs, said of the products on the list of potentially harmful products reaching the us in recent years were exclusive to china: "yet as more large-scale labor markets compete for their share of international trade, the incentives to cut corners will increase and the temptation to overlook hazardous goods might become a more common occurrence." in 10 november 2008 issue of the singaporean newspaper today, bill durodié, then a senior fellow at the s. rajaratnam school of international studies responded to the possibility of more such incidents in the future due to the more liberal trading relations with china by saying: "exposing the chinese to the world market is probably the fastest way of addressing these issues." on the power structure the structure of the chinese government was criticized for contributing to the scandal. time magazine cited analysts saying the party's need to maintain control of the economy and of information undermines the independence of any regulatory system. one analyst, willy lam, a senior fellow at the jamestown foundation, indicated that ccp's pervasive control over political and economic resources has resulted in a lack of accountability in government systems. hu xingdou (胡星斗), a professor at beijing institute of technology, said: "there hasn't been an effort to establish a moral foundation to the market economy, and this incident is the inevitable result." hu urged the leadership to transform the way of thinking, to repair the system, rather than dealing with problems as they arise. a beijing-based consultancy, dragonomics, concurred that "the problem was rooted in the communist party's continued involvement in pricing control, company management and the flow of information". independent regulation was lacking or ineffective as local industries were so intertwined with local officialdom. the times reported that while one child in 20 in shanghai could have kidney damage as a result of drinking contaminated formula milk, on the other hand, "like the emperors of old, the new communist elite enjoy the finest produce from all over china, sourced by a high-security government department." access asia, a shanghai-based consumer consultancy, said fonterra was an example of western executives in china "believ advice in business books that they must avoid making their local partners 'lose face' at all costs". it suggested that fonterra paid the price for this both financially and in damage to their reputation. caijing said the crisis revealed that there had been a "serious dereliction of duty" at the aqsiq, and that the government had failed as a "night watchman". citing public consensus that government should limit itself to a supervisory role, it urged the construction of a regulatory system which addressed the role of regulators watching over the production process, avoiding over-regulation, 'regulatory capture' and abuse of power by regulators. "keeping the market in order and ensuring independent law enforcement should be part of the mandate." on the culture of secrecy david bandurski, journalist and researcher at china media project, criticised the state's control of the media for suppressing "information critical to the well-being of ordinary chinese". he asserted that increased press freedom needs to be a component of any strategy to deal with this and other future food-security lapses in china. bandurski cited warnings in 9 october 2008 issues of nanfang daily and the information times for consumers to be aware of that problematic dairy stock (that produced before 14 september) have reappeared in some stores under cover of aggressive promotions. former senior party official bao tong said "the more dark secrets are exposed, the better. you can't cure the disease, or save the chinese people, until you get to the root of the problem." "if the chinese government tries to play down this incident, there will be no social stability in china, let alone harmony ... it will mean that this government has lost the most basic level of trust." on the chinese social critics as a reaction to and comment on the scandal, chinese artist and video animation producer pi san created "little rabbit, be good" as part of his popular kuang kuang video series. though officially banned or forbidden by the chinese government, clever use of chinese web services such as baidu allows chinese citizens to access this and many other forbidden materials. on the relationship with australia because of the high chinese demand for quality australian products, major australian retailers implemented tin limits to control sales of baby formula, but reports of daigou shoppers flouting the system with people taking multiple tins of the formula before they'd been placed on shelves, and the daigou shoppers stripping shelves in groups of up to eight people, before australian mothers could access the baby food. this daigou activity has been facilitated by the chinese navy and its warships. widening contamination the search widened when some manufacturers tested positive despite reportedly not using chinese milk. the sri lankan manufacturer of munchee lemon puff biscuits, having tested positive in switzerland, categorically stated that its powdered milk or milk products were sourced only from australia, the netherlands and canada; similarly, pokka products without milk or its derivatives from china were found by vietnamese authorities to be contaminated. chicken and eggs japanese and south korean authorities' tests on imported powdered eggs from china found melamine contamination. japan found melamine in frozen fried chicken imported from china. the south korean supplies were traced to two companies in dalian. on 26 october, hong kong authorities discovered 4.7ppm melamine in eggs from dalian. hong kong secretary for food and health, york chow, suspected the melamine came from feed given to the chickens that laid the eggs. on 29 october, hong kong authorities discovered a third batch of eggs containing excessive melamine. the taiwanese department of health said that six batches of protein powder from jilin and dalian were found to contain 1.90 to 5.03ppm of melamine. agriculture officials speculated that adulterated feed given to hens could explain melamine in eggs. the web sites of xinhua and people's daily both carried a story from the nanfang daily that mixing melamine into animal feed was an "open secret" in the industry: melamine scrap was mixed into an inexpensive "protein powder" resold to feed suppliers. people in the trade interviewed by businessweek also confirmed it was common practice, and had been going on for "years", with most believing it to be non-toxic to animals. melamine dealers said after sanlu, the government started clamping down on melamine sales to food processing companies or to manufacturers of animal feed. baking powder malaysian authorities determined that ammonium bicarbonate, not milk, imported from china was the source of contamination at khong guan and khian guan biscuit factory. malaysian authorities said it was probable cross contamination of batches from chinese companies broadtech chemical int. co ltd, dalian chemical industries and tianjin red triangle international trading co, and did not suspect adulteration. on 19 october, taiwanese authorities detected melamine in 469 tons of baking ammonia imported from china. samples tested showed up to 2,470ppm of melamine. impact and response international agencies jorgen schlundt, head of food safety at the who criticised china's food-safety system for being "disjointed", saying that "poor communications between ministries and agencies may have prolonged the outbreak of melamine poisoning." chinese public and the trade public concerns have resulted in demand and egg prices falling throughout the country. prices at a large beijing wholesale market dropped 10%, and prices fell by 10% the day after news of the contamination broke in hong kong. wholesalers have refused to stock products without melamine inspection certificates. the beijing youth daily reported that farmers had been forced to slaughter tens of thousands of chickens. in 2008, zhao lianhai (赵连海), a chinese man whose son was sickened by tainted milk earlier that year, started a website called "home for the kidney stone babies" (结石宝宝之家, jieshibaobao.com), which helped families with children affected by tainted milk share their experiences, in part by maintaining a database of medical records. the website upset chinese authorities, who detained zhao in november 2009 and arrested him in december 2009. prc government the chinese government said that producers violating the law "could have their licenses revoked and be handed over to law enforcement organs". a senior agriculture ministry official said that of a quarter of a million feed-makers and animal farms inspected for melamine contamination, inspectors found more than 500 engaged in "illegal or questionable practices". some 3,700 tonnes of feed with excessive melamine were seized. hong kong regulators have requested certification of exported eggs, but the central government has not yet mounted a centralised response; although mainland authorities already require eggs to be certified as free of avian influenza and sudan red dye prior to export following previous food-safety