By Bridget Johnson, your guide to Journalism

The People’s Republic is racking up quite a roster: pet food that caused kidney failure, lead in children’s toys, children’s toys that turned into date-rape drug ingredients, bad toothpaste, etc. And now, poisoned dumplings. But China swears that the frozen gyoza from a factory outside Beijing must have been poisoned in Japan before 10 Japanese dumpling-eaters were sickened by pesticides in the product:

“Wei Chuanzhong of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said he believed the case was ‘an isolated deliberate crime’ carried out outside of China.


‘We believe the Japan “poison dumpling incident” is not a food safety problem caused by pesticide residues,’ he told a Beijing press conference.


‘The act of contaminating the dumplings was very unlikely to have happened in China.’”

Let’s just say that Japanese authorities are unlikely to be rifling through mugshots hunting for the Serial Dumpling Poisoner. China has a pathetic recent history of poor quality control of myriad products, deep-seated ingredient and hygiene issues that won’t be solved by executing the food and drug administration chief.

However, this sort of baseless accusation against Japan, especially with China’s checkered export history, is also likely to strain relations between the two countries.