US Congressmen promise action on China safety scares

BEIJING, Aug 28 (Reuters) The US Congress will act soon to address the issue of Chinese food and product safety, something Beijing should not take as a trumped-up political act, two US lawmakers said today.

A series of scandals involving sub-standard Chinese exports ranging from pet food to toys has put increasing pressure on Beijing to clean up its manufacturing sector.

Representative Rick Larsen, a Washington Democrat, said that he saw the recent safety scares as presenting an opportunity for China and the United States to work together to solve them.

''But it's going to mean Congress taking some action in September on food and product safety,'' Larsen told a US business group in Beijing, where he had met with Chinese product safety officials.

''It's certainly my impression ... that we're going to get something done on food and product safety. It hits far too close to home to too many people, so we will do something,'' Larsen said.

Larsen said that legislation being prepared by himself and Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, would ramp up oversight by placing Food and Drug Administration and Consumer Product Safety Commission inspectors directly at sites in China where goods are produced for export to the United States.

The bill would also greatly increase the liability of US-based importers of goods that prove to be defective, he said.

''We're going to have some dramatic times ahead, I think, on food and product safety,'' said Kirk.

Larsen declined to say what measures he thought China should take in response to the recent crisis, but called on Beijing to understand the gravity of the problem -- and the need for action by Congress.

''It's visceral. It's about your child and it's about your pet, and it's about food on the table. You can't get more personal than that for Americans, and so it does need to be addressed,'' he said.

Lord Malloch-Brown, British Minister for Africa, Asia and the United Nations, said that it would be a ''great mistake'' for China to see this as a protectionist issue.

''It's a consumer issue but it can be addressed by the kind of vigorous action that I think China will take on this,'' Malloch-Brown said in Hong Kong.

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