A N.Y. Times editorial today said that "the Chinese government’s extraordinary decision to execute its chief food and drug regulator for taking bribes and allowing the sale of tainted drugs is a perfect example of all that is wrong with China’s approach to regulation."

The editorial also says that "the scope of the problem is too big, too complex and too urgent for the United States — with $300 billion worth of Chinese imports a year — to wait for Beijing to act. American importers need to provide the first line of defense. Companies like Wal-Mart should send inspectors regularly to visit the factories of Chinese suppliers, to ensure that products are up to acceptable standards. Ultimately the American government will have to enforce these norms."

That echoes what I told Elizabeth Weise in USA Today last Wednesday:

"Whether your food comes from down the street or around the globe, you want to verify that producers and processors are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing."

The Wall Street Journal also ran a great piece today on food safety being used as a protectionist trade barrier.

Safety standards have a history of being used as trade barriers, and observers in China and the U.S. worry that a pattern may be reappearing. The back and forth of blocked imports looks increasingly like a trade battle, one in which accusations of endangering consumers have taken the place of charges of unfair competition and dumping.

"We are likely to see these requirements increasingly being used, and abused, as a trade barrier," says Leora Blumberg, an international-trade adviser based in Hong Kong for the law firm Heller Ehrman LLP. Ms. Blumberg says that a series of global trade pacts has reduced import duties across the board and restrained the ability of nations to block trade through other means.

I adopted a similar line in the Washington Post yesterday:

"(I’ve) watched food safety long enough — 15 years — to know that one country’s scientific standard is another’s non-tariff trade barrier. Science gets used and abused all the time."

And the L.A. Times this morning:

"Food safety issues are often used for political means in times of strained trade relations. … Politically, it’s a standard tactic. They’ll say it is a food safety issue, but really it’s a political issue."