China executes ex-food safety chief

China executes ex-food safety chief
By Geoff Dyer in Shanghai
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: July 10 2007 08:13 | Last updated: July 10 2007 10:21


China has executed its former head food and drug regulator for taking bribes to approve medicines, rapidly carrying out his sentence in an apparent warning to other officials following a series of scandals about the quality of products made in China.

The execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, 62, was confirmed by state television and news agencies after the Supreme People’s Court approved the death sentence. Mr Zheng was convicted of taking Rmb6.5m in bribes from pharmaceuticals companies.

Mr Zheng is the most senior official to be executed since 2000 and the unusually harsh penalty and swift enforcement, following his trial in May, underlines mounting government concern about the scandals that have damaged the reputation of Chinese products.

Mr Zheng was accused of having let six medicines be sold on the market that turned out to be fakes during his seven-year tenure as head of the State Food and Drugs Administration. In one case, a fake antibiotic is believed to have led to the deaths of around 10 people.

Commenting on the case, a spokeswoman for the SFDA said that the scandals at the agency underlined the weak institutional apparatus in China for monitoring the quality of products such as food and medicine.

“China is a developing country and our supervision of food and drugs started late and our foundation for this work is weak,” said Yan Jiangying. “Therefore we cannot be too optimistic about the current food and drug safety situation.”

She said the government is now rotating officials in key positions on a regular basis to prevent them from forging too close ties with companies.

As well as the cases of fake medicine raise during Mr Zheng’s trial, China has witnessed a series of product safety scares in recent years including a cancer-causing dye used to colour egg yolks, faulty milk powder that led to the deaths of several babies and pork which contained banned additives.

The prosecution of Mr Zheng has also coincided with a number of safety problems with Chinese products in the US, including pet food that contained an industrial chemical, toys covered in lead paint and tires that lacked an important safety feature.

A former senior aide to Mr Zheng, Cao Wenzhuang, was also given a death sentence last week for his role in the bribery cases involving his old boss. However he was given a two-year reprieve. Lawyers said that in most such cases, the sentence was reduced at a later date.