Publication: China Online
Date: Thursday, April 11, 2002

Experts estimate that the Chinese have so far consumed more than 20 million tons of genetically modified food.

Most of the genetically modified food currently on the domestic market is not labeled, so people are unaware of which food on their dinner tables is bioengineered, Yangcheng Wanbao (Yangcheng Evening News) reported yesterday.


Xia Youfu, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said that China itself produces little genetically modified food such as grain or oil plants. The country grows some bioengineered pest-resistant cotton, which is not food, Xia said.

The first genetically modified plant was born in the United States in 1983. However, mass production and commercialization of bioengineered crops did not begin until 1996, when China started to import such products.

China`s imports of genetically modified crops, including soybeans, reached 80,000 tons in 1996, 2.8 million tons in 1999, 7.5 million tons in 2000 and more than 10 million tons in 2001. The country`s imports of bioengineered products increased more than 100 times during the six years.

The top-three bioengineered crops that China imports are soybeans, corn and rapeseeds, Xia said. Last year, China imported 15 million tons of soybeans, an amount equal to its domestic production of naturally grown soybeans.

China uses imported soybeans as raw materials for soybean oil, tofu or soymilk. More than 80 percent of soybean salad oil, a high-grade oil product, is made from bioengineered soybeans, Xia said.

On March 20, China implemented new safety certification and labeling rules for genetically modified products.

U.S. soybean exporters were worried that the new rules threatened to hold up the US$1 billion annual trade in soybeans between the United States and China, about 70 percent of which are genetically engineered.

However, negotiations with U.S. trade representatives resulted in a compromise in which Beijing said it would issue preliminary safety approvals for such products and would grant a transition period of nine months, until Dec. 20, after the new rules took effect.