The Impacts of International Regulation on Regulatory Enforcement: The Case of Food Safety Regulation in China

This article examines variations in the enforcement styles and strategies of different food regulatory regimes in China. Building on a comparative case study of four food sectors, it suggests that the internationalization of... [ view full abstract ]

This article examines variations in the enforcement styles and strategies of different food regulatory regimes in China. Building on a comparative case study of four food sectors, it suggests that the internationalization of regulation brings about regulatory variations in China's food safety regulation. Faced with tensions between obligations to comply with international standards and constraints of regulatory incapacity and local resistance, the Chinese government adopts diversified regulatory enforcement
styles: on one hand, exported food businesses in China have received active and highly deterrent regulatory enforcement; on the other hand, for the domestic food sector, while large and medium-sized food businesses are prone to active and moderately deterrent enforcement, a reactive form of information-gathering and persuasive approach to behavior-modification are imposed on small businesses. Thus, there are two separate strategies in use: the active one represents that regulators utilize centralized monitoring measures to detect violation as well as punishment to deter non-compliance; the reactive one suggests that regulators focus on persuasion and negotiation to build consensus and cooperation.
Despite this general observation, this article further finds that continual regulatory changes have taken place under the "spill-over" effect of the internationalization of food regulation, in the direction diffusing from the exported food regulatory regime to the domestic one. In particular, food safety crises have prompted the Chinese government to safeguard its international image and push forward regulatory modification. This article suggests that the Chinese government invests intensive regulatory resources to scrutinize food products for export in order to comply with international regulations. In the meantime, similar to that of other developing countries, food safety enforcement in China has been broadly constrained domestically by weak regulatory endowments and strong local resistance.