Who Banned My Cheese? Is China's 2018 Cabinet Restructuring Enough?

Abstract

Despite its remarkable growth, cheese imports in China have been banned on a number of instances. This recent ban came in September 2017 and was placed on Italy’s gorgonzola and taleggio, France’s camembert and roquefort and the English Stilton. Was the ban on cheese really a “problem caused by regulations” as Mr. Wu Jingchun claimed? If this were the case, the cure would be rather simple – revise the regulation itself. Over the past few decades, China’s State Council continued to take on quests for a legitimate authority when faced with overlaps of domains among agencies in implementing its law and regulations, as part of its streamlining effort. It is natural to assume then that finding the appropriate controlling authority would have been an important task, while it continued to focus on integrating agencies. 5 This was perhaps done for several reasons including maintaining sensitivity against the danger of fragmented and disintegrated agencies, which has been a challenge for decades in the past. But what was missing despite various attempts was clearly designated agencies becoming primarily responsible for certain products in which it has experience and information on.