Introduction
This paper briefly summarizes the article, China’s Corrupt Food Chain (Yanzhong Huang, 2012), discusses the ethical issues that the article highlights, and incorporates the basic business theory. It also provides a look into some of the possible solutions for the business issues, the stakeholders affected by the issues, and winds up with a conclusion and some recommendations regarding the subject matter.
Ethical Issues
Huang (2012) has identified four main ethical issues, which the business community in China does not observe. The first issue that the article highlights is the preparation of rotten food items in order to sale to customers locally and abroad. The act of putting additives in rotten food stuffs in order to make it look fresh and sell to customers amounts to cheating and stealing from customers. There is no fair exchange of goods between sellers and buyers, which amounts to unethical behaviour in business. The Chinese business community is in breach of the utilitarianism theory by considering gains without caring about the consequences to consumers after eating the spoilt and harmful food items.
The second issue that the author highlights is the mixing of food with harmful additives with the aim of selling it to people. The act of the Chinese business community of putting dangerous additives in food is unethical business practice. The article gives examples of harmful additives, which include sodium metabisulphite, bleaching agents, melamine, steroid clenbuterol, cadmium, ink, paraffin, fluorescent bleach, and street gutters. These additives have caused a number of diseases to people including the destruction of people’s liver and kidneys. The innocent consumers, after eating these infected foods, fall sick and thus they spend lots of money for treatment, and sometimes one might die from the incurable diseases caused by these harmful ingredients.
Another issue that the article highlights is the sale of harmful food in the local market and international markets. The act of supplying harmful foods to the consumers shows that the Chinese business community is in breach of the utilitarianism theory. Business people seek super profits for the cost-benefit analysis principle under the utilitarianism theory requires businesses to weigh its costs and benefits against those of its consumers.
It is unfair deal to sell harmful foodstuffs to customers while knowing that it will be very costly to consumers after using the foodstuff for they will fall ill and incur huge costs in treatment. The last issue identified by the author in the article is the preservation of fruits using dangerous preservatives and selling to the local and foreign markets. The act of intentionally preserving fruits with harmful additives is criminal and goes against business morality. The Chinese business community, without caring for the customers’ health, distributes toxic fruits in both local and foreign market. This act of deceiving consumers, which is against good business practices, also goes against the utilitarianism theory, which advocates for good business practices.
Summary of the Article
Yanzhong Huang (2012) reported for the New York Times newspaper on China’s Corrupt Food Chain on the monthly reports issued by the China’s National Broadcaster CCTV for April. This report also appeared in the Chinese Journal of Food Hygiene (2012). The article revealed the unhygienic industrial food processing that sixteen companies in China carried out. These companies produce preserved fruits for sale, both locally and abroad. The report showed that peaches packed in unhygienic bags and fruits preserved with additives harmful to humans were sold locally and some exported overseas to big brand stores.
The report also indicated that food items mixed with harmful additives were supplied in the local market and those for export markets were treated with harmful preservatives. The report showed that food treated with the chemicals caused ill health to more than ninety four million (94,000,000) people in China, with estimated deaths of more than 8,500 residents per year. The article argued that unhealthy food supply is an indication of the breakdown of business morality, decline in community integrity, and inability of the Chinese government’s mechanisms to curb these unethical business practices.
In 2009, in response to the public outcry the Chinese Government passed food safety legislation. The aim of this law was to combat unethical business acts on handling food items from the farm to the market. However, there have been implementation difficulties on the food safety law. Some of the reasons proposed by this article are the underdeveloped legislative institutions and corruption. Further, the bureaucratic administrative mechanisms regarding law enforcement has frustrated these efforts. In addition, China’s government restructuring and multilevel of law implementation has complicated the issue of coordination and created room for corrupt acts.
Two former state ideologies of Confucianism and Communism acted as watchdogs for citizens’ behaviour and business good manners. The recent reforms in China’s ideologies, which are leading to the apparent disintegration of Communist control, have left a gap in the belief that resulted into the emergency of materialism. In China, the ideology of materialism has resulted into people’s excessive love of wealth. The re-emergency of capitalism resulted in people’s new drive in the uncontrolled search for wealth by all means, whether legal or illegal. The article quotes Deng Xiaoping to have said, “To get rich is glorious”.
The new society’s search for wealth has lowered China’s community ethics and created a bad international reputation for the nation. The report showed that 23,000-surveyed adult citizens in China acknowledged that there has been a decline of society’s morality. In western countries, where materialism has been in practice for a long time, there are more advanced regulatory frameworks and focus on society’s morality has kept the issue under control.
Predicting the serious problems facing the Chinese community, the Prime Minister appealed to the Chinese citizens to instil society’s ethics in order to regain the country’s reputation. The citizens have consequently personalised the issue of food safety to make up for the failure in the government’s framework. The Premier pledge for the enforcement of business ethics in China’s society has attracted negative reception by the majority of the prominent politicians and other influential people in the government. There have also been other scandals contributing to the country’s bad image in relation to morality.
The report named some of the scandals, for instance, scandals on food safety, the murder suspected to have been committed by the wife of Bo Xilai, and the corruption scandal committed by Liu Zhijun, the departed railway minister.
The Chinese government’s temporary solution of establishing special food supply for its elites in order to protect the country’s elites complicates the problem of the business community’s unethical behaviour. This act signifies that there is a big problem with business ethics in China, which the government is unable to solve. The article argued that the elites and law enforcers are central to business ethics’ decline. However, the government’s effort of protecting few people whom it considers as important in the country is a dangerous move for the stability of the Chinese community. What the Chinese government has done is embracing the unethical business behaviours and segregating its citizens into those who are elites and the low class people within the country.
As part of the solution to these issues, the author suggests that there should be firm political will by the ruling elite class in order to safeguard its citizens. These citizens are the ones who actually put the ruling class in power. Otherwise, in the long-run people will lose hope with the government, which may result in rivalry and crisis in China. The article also suggests intensifying the marketing campaign at international level using international bodies such as the FAO and the WHO in order to improve China’s business practices. External forces are necessary to protect humans and their rights to eat healthful food.
Basic Business Theory
The teleological theories are the base theories applicable for this news article in relation to business conducts particularly the utilitarianism theory. According to Gulcan (2011), teleological theories are the most commonly used in analysing business ethics. He further states that the utilitarianism theory recognises that business is concerned with cost benefit analysis, which means that the motive of business is profit making. However, the theory emphasizes two main issues, viz. the business’ long-term benefits and damages caused to humans and environment in the process of carrying out its operations.
Gulcan’s (2011) study argues that the utilitarianism theory acknowledges the compliance to rules and maximising utility. The issue under discussion is how the business is making this profit. Should it maximize profit without caring the health factors of its customers, or should the business people observe good manners in doing businesses? These are some of the important questions that the entire society in general should consider when doing business legally (Ferrel, Fraedrich, & Ferrell 2013). Therefore, the utilitarianism theory applies to this discussion on the unethical issues identified in this article on “China’s food chain”.
Possible Solutions to the Business Issues
One of the possible solutions is that instead of using backhand tactics, the business owners should consider capitalising on the quality of their food products for sale to the emerging middle class community. Although in Milton Friedman’s opinion the social responsibility of a business is to make profit, it does not imply the exclusion of ethical responsibilities (Friedman 1970). This solution takes care of the problem of low consumer levels as well as increasing profitability (Montel 2003).
An increase in vigilance through the establishment of proper quality control mechanisms by the international market would ensure that sub-standard goods do not penetrate the market, thus creating pressure for better quality foods. This move would place pressure on the unscrupulous traders selling unhealthy products, thus forcing them to conform to the production of good quality food items in order to maximize on sales. Lastly, the government should consider the possibility of enforcing the food safety legislation through the provision of stricter penalties and harsh punishments.
Stakeholders
The stakeholders involved in this business practice include:
Consumers
Consumers are the key business stakeholders for without them, there would be no business. However, according to the news article, the food sold to consumers is unhealthy and has bad consequences.
The Chinese Community
The Chinese community is another business stakeholder. The unethical acts of distributing harmful food products to the international community (i.e. big brand stores) create a bad image of Chinese community in the eyes of the international community. The bad name has consequences to the entire range of products from the Chinese market. Further, the Chinese residents and other inhabitants may become sick after eating unhealthy foods.
International Community
The international community plays an important role as far as importation and exportation of goods is concerned. The sale of substandard goods to other markets would thus have severe implications for the Chinese economy including loss of revenue and foreign exchange. It would thus be in the best interest of the country to ensure that the goods that the country supplies to other countries are of the best quality possible
The Chinese Government
The author of this article appropriately recommends that there should be strong political will on the part of Chinese leadership in order to protect the rights of international consumers in general and the Chinese consumer community in particular from feeding on infected food.
The Chinese government stands to profit through increased revenue from increased sales in the international market. Good quality products also foster good relations with other countries, which is important in the conduct of issues that are not necessarily trade related. For instance, a country is more likely to offer military assistance to a country that proves to be a valuable trade partner, as a way of protecting its interests.
Conclusion
The Chinese and the international community should strongly condemn the practice of some food manufacturers in China concerning the preparation and distribution of unhygienic food to the general community. This business practice is contrary to the business ethical behaviours. This article argues that the Chinese society’s morality has sharply declined compared to the traditional behaviour under the two former ideologies of Confucianism and communism, whereby the morals of China’s society were very high. The article further argues that the society’s morality determines the business people’s ethical behaviour.
Given that these food chains operate beyond boarders, it is the duty of the general community to make sure that it put pressures on the Chinese government to combat these unethical business practices. Otherwise, these food items might affect the entire global community, through shipment to consumer stores worldwide.
Reference List
Huang, Y 2012, ‘China’s Corrupt Food Chain’, The New York Times. Web.
Gulcan, Y 2012, Some Ethical Approaches in Business. Web.
Ferrell, C, Fraedrich, J & Ferrell, L 2013 Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, 9th ed., Cengage, USA.
Friedman, M 1970, ‘The social responsibility of business is to increase profits’, The New York Times Magazine. Web.
Montel, P 2003, Macroeconomics in the emerging markets, Cambridge, Cambridge UP.
Chinese Journal of Food and Hygiene: China’s corrupt food chain 2012. Web.