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Chinese food policy has changed over the last two decades from a productivist focus to embracing a precautionary approach to food safety. What are the drivers of this change? And what are the implications for the Chinese political regime? While acknowledging the relevance of global dynamics, we claim that domestic dynamics have largely accounted for this change. A series of food scandals in the 2000s has caused concerns among Chinese consumers and ultimately lead to a contested governance of food safety in the nation that has challenged the legitimacy of the regime itself. The government has responded by introducing new precautionary measures, as theorists of responsive authoritarianism would predict. Contrary to such predictions, though, the Chinese government toughened provisions to repress violations. Due to these characteristics, we conclude that the Chinese approach to food safety that emerged after the food scandals can be synthesised as a form of precautionary authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of genetic technology, the application of genetically modified crops has brought revolutionary changes to the global agricultural production and agricultural trade patterns, and has played an important role in ensuring human health, environmental safety and sustainable agricultural development. In order to strengthen genetically modified organisms (GMO) safety management, countries around the world have formulated GMO safety management policies adapted to their own national conditions with reference to internationally accepted practices. In this study, we carried out comparative studies among the United States, the European Union, Japan and other developed countries or regions and China from the aspects of regulations and management institutions, safety evaluation systems, and label management, so as to provide references for the improvement of China's GMO safety management policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND To evaluate the large quantities of genetically modified soybeans that are imported into China, we evaluated the presence of transgenes in soybean samples from an area, which are major soybean-producing areas. We evaluated the presence of exogenous genes in a total of 254 soybean samples from farms and 35 commercially available soybean samples using polymerase chain reaction amplification and sequence analysis. RESULTS The farm soybean samples contained a total of 67 CaMV35S-positive samples, 46 NOS-positive samples, 16 CP4-EPEPS-positive samples, and 66 BT-positive samples. The commercially available soybean samples contained a total of 12 CaMV35S-positive samples, 19 NOS-positive samples, 13 CP4-EPEPS-positive samples, and 15 BT-positive samples. CONCLUSION Several exogenous genes were detected in the farmed and commercially available soybeans. We should use caution in the management of genetically modified soybeans. © 2015 Society of Chemical Industry [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rice is a facultative short-day plant (SDP), and the regulatory pathways for flowering time are conserved, but functionally modified, in Arabidopsis and rice. Heading date 1 (Hd1), an ortholog of Arabidopsis CONSTANS (CO), is a key regulator that suppresses flowering under long-day conditions (LDs), but promotes flowering under short-day conditions (SDs) by influencing the expression of the florigen gene Heading date 3a (Hd3a). Another key regulator, Early heading date 1 (Ehd1), is an evolutionarily unique gene with no orthologs in Arabidopsis, which acts as a flowering activator under both SD and LD by promoting the rice florigen genes Hd3a and RICE FLOWERING LOCUST 1 (RFT1). Here, we report the isolation and characterization of the flowering regulator eading ate epressor1 (HDR1) in rice. The hdr1 mutant exhibits an early flowering phenotype under natural LD in a paddy field in Beijing, China (39°54'N, 116°23'E), as well as under LD but not SD in a growth chamber, indicating that HDR1 may functionally regulate flowering time via the photoperiod-dependent pathway. HDR1 encodes a nuclear protein that is most active in leaves and floral organs and exhibits a typical diurnal expression pattern. We determined that HDR1 is a novel suppressor of flowering that upregulates Hd1 and downregulates Ehd1, leading to the downregulation of Hd3a and RFT1 under LDs. We have further identified an HDR1-interacting kinase, OsK4, another suppressor of rice flowering under LDs. OsK4 acts similarly to HDR1, suppressing flowering by upregulating Hd1 and downregulating Ehd1 under LDs, and OsK4 can phosphorylate HD1 with HDR1 presents. These results collectively reveal the transcriptional regulators of Hd1 for the day-length-dependent control of flowering time in rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper furnishes empirical evidence that Chinese farmers have perceived a strong increase in secondary pests (i.e. pests other than the cotton bollworm) after Bt cotton was introduced. The findings suggesting possible ecological change are based on a survey of 1000 farm households in five provinces in China. We also found that farmers continue to use higher levels of pesticide use than reported in previous studies, most likely to bring secondary pests under control. Another problem associated with the introduction of Bt cotton in China is the low awareness and knowledge of genetic modification by farmers. As a result, farmers are insufficiently capable to assess the possible risks of Bt cotton and link these to agricultural production problems. Lastly, the liberalisation of the Chinese seed market had profound negative effects on farmers, as many of them were confronted with counterfeit seed resulting in yield losses. Against this backdrop, we argue that agro-biotechnological innovations in developing economies should be introduced with caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is one of the leading developing countries in biotechnology research and development. As a mega-biodiverse country, governance on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is of significance to national sustainable development. This paper reviews the biosafety regulations on agricultural GMOs (agro-GMOs) governance in China and analyses the implementation and enforcement of biosafety regulations from the aspects of biosafety assessment, import-export, and labelling. The identified challenges in the enforcement of biosafety regulations in China might give implications for other developing countries in dealing with biosafety issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the politics of genetically modified organisms in China. The article attempts to probe the possibility of whether China might evolve into a developmental risk society, a society in which government and science confronted with major development issues, disregard technological risks due to the absence of sufficient countervailing forces.