The crisis of confidence in Chinese food exports ignited by contaminated pet food sold in the United States appears to be spreading.

Stricter monitoring by destination countries is only part of the headache for Chinese food exporters. Their greater concern is what they call groundless categorization, or a tendency to discriminate against all products from China.

We cannot place the blame on overseas consumers, who are free to buy things made in China, or not. When something bad happens, we should examine ourselves first and see if we had a role in it.

Our quality watchdogs' contradictory statements regarding responsibility for the sensational pet food scandal was a shameful example of lack of professionalism. They first denied, then soon admitted that the contaminated pet food originated in China.

We hope they made that mistake because of long-term confidence in our food exports. It is an open secret here that our manufacturers usually employ higher standards when it comes to exports. So in spite of persistent public distrust of our messy food safety monitoring network for the home market, overseas consumers are generally well protected.

There are times such vigilance fails. Otherwise, the contaminated pet food would not have been shipped out.

That is why we believe that not all the criticism of China's food exports result from protectionist agendas. To restore and maintain consumer confidence, our quality watchdogs have an obligation to demonstrate that Chinese exports are safe.

If they find the need to unify or raise standards, we hope they no longer apply double or multiple standards for domestic and overseas markets.

That said, products made in China deserve to be popular everywhere. Not only are they very reasonably priced but they are generally well-made and safe. This country's comparative advantages extend far beyond cheap labor.

While calling on our own manufacturers and quality inspectors to place more emphasis on safety, we urge all beneficiaries of Chinese exports to maintain cool heads amid possibly unfair allegations against Chinese exports.

And we hope that some Chinese exporters' worries about a tendency to sensationalize and politicize isolated safety issues are groundless.

(China Daily 05/23/2007 page10)