China Urges U.S. Not to Punish All Food Exporters
By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: May 17, 2007

中国敦促美国不要惩罚所有的食品出口企业

SHANGHAI, May 16 — China has urged the United States not to take punitive action against this country’s exporters of agricultural goods even though Chinese officials have determined that two Chinese companies intentionally contaminated American pet food ingredients with an industrial chemical.
纽约时报上海5月16日电---中国敦促美国不要对中国农产品出口企业采取惩罚性行动，尽管中国官员已经确认两家中国企业曾故意向美国宠物食品中添加一种工业化学品。

The government said this week that it had shut the two companies and detained several of their officers for their roles in setting off one of the largest pet food recalls in United States history.
中国政府本周说，这两家企业已经被关闭，并拘留了几名和造成美国历史上最大的宠物食品召回事件之一有关的官员。

The announcement, which was released late Monday, on the Web site of the country’s quality inspection watchdog, appeared just days after investigators from the federal Food and Drug Administration ended a two-week-long visit to China seeking to determine how an industrial chemical called melamine got mixed into pet food ingredients.
周一晚些时候，中国质量检测机构的网站上发布了这项声明。之前几天，美国FDA的调查人员结束了在中国为期两周的行程，他们此行的目的是确定一种叫三聚氰胺的工业化学品是如何混入宠物食品的。

“We hope the American side will accurately and objectively deal with problems among individual companies and not take stringent measures against other Chinese companies producing the same type of products,” the government statement read.
中国政府声明中称，“希望美方正确客观地对待个别企业出现的问题，不要对中国其他企业同类产品采取严厉措施。”

China also said it hoped the case would not lead to trade frictions.
中国（政府）还希望这个事件不会造成贸易摩擦。

A spokesman for the F.D.A. in Washington could not be reached for comment. On Tuesday, however, F.D.A. officials said during a news conference that American investigators had recently returned from China and were preparing a report on the trip. The official said it was unclear when such a report would be released.
华盛顿FDA发言人还未对此事发表评论。周二，FDA官员在一个新闻发布会上说，美国调查人员已经回国，并在途中准备了一份报告，但该报告何时对外公布还不清楚。

The announcement was the clearest signal yet that China was working hard to repair the damage done by the pet food scandal and growing concerns about the quality of the country’s agricultural exports.
中国政府的声明是一个清晰的信号，表明中国正在努力消除宠物食品丑闻造成的损害，并对中国出口农产品质量更加关注。

In recent weeks, China has vowed to step up its own inspections of agricultural and food exports and prove that the country does not have a problem with melamine-tainted food or feed ingredients.
近几周，中国宣誓将加快它对出口农产品和食品的检验，并证明它已不存在三聚氰胺污染食品及饲料添加剂的问题。

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in its statement this week and in a similar statement released a week earlier that recently completed nationwide inspections had not turned up any food or feed products containing melamine.
国家质量监督检验检疫总局在本周发布的声明和更早些时候发布的一个类似声明中说，最近完成的全国范围内的检验行动没有发现任何含有三聚氰胺的食品或饲料产品。

The government seems determined to paint the two Chinese companies blamed for exporting melamine-tainted wheat flour to the United States as rogue companies, or “special individual cases” in a largely well-managed export industry.
中国政府似乎决定，将那两个向美国出口含三聚氰胺的麦麸的两家中国公司，描述成害群之马，或一个在很大范围内管理良好的出口行业中的“个别案例”。

The government’s announcement, however, seems quite at odds with local Chinese agricultural industry executives. In recent weeks, they have said in interviews that for years producers and feed makers have either used melamine in animal feed, sold it to animal and fish feed producers or knew of the sale and use of melamine in animal feed.
然而政府声明似乎和中国农业管理人员的看法不同。最近几周他们在接受采访时说，数年来饲料生产商在动物食品中使用三聚氰胺、出售三聚氰胺并了解三聚氰胺在动物饲料中的销售和使用情况。

Interviews with animal feed producers, melamine makers and melamine and feed traders suggested that it was a widespread practice to mix melamine into feed to deceive buyers into thinking they were getting higher-protein meal.
饲料生产商、三聚氰胺制造商和饲料经销商在采访中暗示，将三聚氰胺混入饲料使买家误以为蛋白含量高的做法，是个广为传播的做法。

Most of the people interviewed said they did not believe that the practice was illegal or that melamine was toxic in animals or humans; the melamine was simply filler, most of them said, a way of earning extra profits.
多数被采访者说，他们认为这种做法并非违法，三聚氰胺对动物或人无毒，只是一种简单的填料，这是获取额外利润的一种途径。