What do Hong Kong’s Consumer Council and The Wall Street Journal have in common? Timidity
Hong Kong Free Press
The Consumer Council is a curious creature. It is, according to its ordinance, not a part of the government. It is, though, according to the same ordinance, required to follow any written instruction from the chief executive. And it is, of course, governed, so far as the actual council governs anything, by government appointees.
This is not usually relevant to the council’s work, which is to help consumers with individual complaints and publish reports on topics relevant to consumption. The reports are a reliable source of news, though sometimes seem to be trying rather too hard.
Some of the “safety hazards” of which the council warns us are rather remote. A recent survey of bottled drinking water, for example, worried about bromates, chemicals often found in water which has been chemically purified.
Bromates pose a cancer risk. On the other hand if you drink a daily two quarts, or 1.89 litres, of bottled water containing the upper end of the range of bromates allowed by food regulations, your lifetime cancer risk goes up by about two in 10,000, according to the New York State Health Department.
Other risks which agitate the council are rather obvious. A report on beer, for example, warned that consuming large quantities regularly will make you grow fatter. This will not have come as a great shock to the beer-drinking community.
And so to last week, when the Consumer Council departed from its usual confident, if nit-picking, tone to engage in a full-court grovel before a mainland Chinese beverage company which had complained about its report on bottled water.
The company, Nongfu Spring, is rumoured to be owned by China’s richest man. In view of the hazards attached to being China’s richest man this is probably a malicious report circulated by his enemies. Still, it is a big company, so we may suppose it to be well-connected.
The council had reported that a sample of Nongfu’s mineral water had a bromate content of 3 micrograms per litre, which coincides with the upper limit in the European Union standard for some water products.
It also made some mildly critical comments on the taste and mineral content, and gave the sample four and a half stars out of five. Clearly, this upset Nongfu, but if you want to dispute and downgrade a report you keep off the subjective stuff and go for the science.
In a strongly worded letter, the company complained that the EU standard was inappropriate, and the sample tested was not, as the council had supposed, “natural mineral water” nor “purified drinking water.”
Instead it was in a category recognised by mainland Chinese food regulations, “natural drinking water,” and met the standards required in the mainland for this category. If not offered a correction and apology the company would take “further action.”
It also complained that it was inappropriate to use food standards from outside Hong Kong, and as the water was produced in mainland China, mainland standards should apply.
Following a meeting, the council, usually a robust defender of its conclusions, collapsed in a heap, apologising, reclassifying Nongfu’s masterpiece as five stars, and stressing that all the samples it tested were perfectly safe to drink, as indeed it had stated in its original report.
This is disappointing. Firstly it is important and useful that the Consumer Council should be able to consult and use a wide range of standards from outside Hong Kong. There are many matters for which there is no local standard. Also the phrase “mainland food safety standards” produces a little mental crashing of gears, the kind you get from concepts like “truthful Donald Trump,” “Swiss seamanship” or “Hong Kong’s beloved government.” We can do better.
Secondly, water is water. Nongfu Spring’s business model involves fostering confusion on this point. The company’s website offers Drinking Natural Water, Drinking Purified Water, Natural Jokul Mineral Water, Drinking Natural Water (Suitable for children and nursing mothers), Natural Mineral Water (containing lithium), Drinking Natural Spring Water (suitable for tea making), and Natural Mineral Water in three different kinds of bottle (sports caps, glass and zodiac).
Oddly enough there is no product called “natural drinking water” and people who hawk products called “mineral water” should not be surprised if mineral water standards are applied to them. How can we expect the Consumer Council to stand up for consumers if it is too timid to stand up for itself?
Also an unexpected contender for the traditional white feather last week was The Wall Street Journal, which summarily fired a reporter, Selina Cheng, for accepting the post of chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association. Cheng said she had been warned against “advocating for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong.”
Is this the real Wall Street Journal, proprietor Rupert Murdoch, home in New York, safely headquartered in the home of the brave, land of the free? Alas, so it is. Indeed some people have suggested that the newspaper already has one reporter languishing in a communist jail and is reluctant to risk having another in the same plight.
I know US newspapers have a thing about reporters displaying political preferences. But even The Wall Street Journal apparently regards advocating for press freedom as acceptable, in places where there is press freedom – an oddly self-defeating condition. Also, Murdoch is famously hostile to unions of any kind.
Still. Cheng’s union activities were not likely to clash with her professional work covering the car and energy industries in China. And the newspaper will soon be free from worries about hostility in Hong Kong because it has moved most of its staff to Singapore.
In response to inquiries, The Wall Street Journal borrowed a famous line from embattled government departments and refused to discuss individual cases. It also said it was “a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world.” Bullshit. Had chance. Blew it.
All HKFP staff are members of the HKJA, and reporter Hans Tse is a member of the 2024-25 Executive Committee.
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