Safety Falters As Chinese Quiet Those Who Cry Foul

In 2003, Gao Jingde, purchasing manager for Shanghai Litian Pharmaceutical, revealed the company was cheating consumers by repackaging another company's drug that was worth about $1.20 and selling it to consumers at nearly eight times that price. The company was ordered to lower the price of the drug. Gao lost his job.

In announcing an overhaul of its food and drug regulatory system in recent weeks, the Chinese leadership has repeatedly stressed the importance of what they term "public oversight" in ensuring the quality of its products. The government has set up Web hot lines for citizens to report suspected wrongdoing such as corruption, but legal experts say it will take more than that to convince people that they will not be punished for speaking out.

The difficulty whistleblowers face is compounded by what some academics have termed "local protectionism," the close relationship between government and business in many cities. Xue Lan, associate director of the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University, said local officials do not always think it is in their best interests to recognize corruption.

"Sometimes local regulatory agencies do not necessarily make the best effort to control issues because it may harm the local economy. So they let it go," Xue said.

For decades, the Communist Party has held primacy over the rule of law in China, making it almost impossible to bring legal action against party leaders and other high-ranking individuals. In addition, the country's legal system is based on socialist principles that value the needs of the society more than those of the individual, according to Chinese legal experts.

Chen Beiyuan, an attorney representing relatives of victims who died after taking a drug made by Qiqihar No. 2 Pharmaceutical with a poisonous ingredient, said the system allows people to sue a company for about 20 times the average yearly salary in the province if someone dies. Qiqihar has said it traced the tainted ingredient to a chemical supplier that tricked the company by substituting a less-expensive but dangerous industrial agent for an inactive ingredient in the medicine.

The Chinese legal system's socialist roots also explain why if someone reports a problem to the public and the state determines they are wrong, they could be put in jail for damaging the company. The reasoning, Chen said, is that "company enterprises are people's gatherings. You can't punish everyone in the company for problems caused by some individuals."

Advocate for Business

The story of how the Zheng, the food and drug safety official, was able to stay in power for so long despite continuing rumors, complaints and accusations of corruption -- like the one Zhang posted on the Internet -- begins in Zhejiang, the coastal province where Zheng built his commercial and political career.

Zheng served in the pharmaceutical industry in the provincial capital of Hangzhou for more than 23 years, working his way up to manager of one drug company before moving to Beijing in 1998 to work at what was then called the Drug Administration.

Zheng arrived as much of the Chinese government was being restructured so it could effectively regulate an increasingly prosperous capitalist economy.

In Beijing in 2002, Zheng made a show of his plans to consolidate the process for drug approvals by adopting a national standard for drugs and dissolving local ones.

"We must make government affairs open to the public, simplify the approval procedures, rectify our work style and work hard to create a favorable environment for those law-abiding companies to develop their business," Zheng told the state-run New China News Agency that year.