No Cheese for you: The Cheese Nazis

Today I offer a hot tip for all of you international travelers. Word on the street is that Chinese customs is no longer allowing travelers to bring in foreign cheeses. Why? One can only speculate.

The background on the issue is this: in the not-to-distant past, there was the damaging discovery that there were many Chinese-made dairy products that contained melamine, resulting in a decline in the consumption of Asian dairy products. The correlation between those events and today’s issue can be interpreted in several ways.

One viewpoint could be that this is wrought from the blatant cruelty of the government; the government is proactively seeking to make life miserable for the ex-pat community, forcing them to buy Chinese products that, by the way, are not renowned for their excellence throughout the international market. Quite frankly, that opinion is ignorant and biased, not to mentioned more than a bit far-fetched. Only a moron would consider it valid.

Another angle is that this is another move by the government to remind everyone that they are in control and the can do as they darn well please, not unlike a six-year-old on a power trip. Again, this is another incorrect assumption spawned from the ranting of flippant liberals.

On the other hand, perhaps this was actually a planned, tactical action to stimulate the flagging industry. With the confiscation of the cheeses, it would close the foreign cheese “grey” market among the ex-pat community and divert the consumers’ resources into the Chinese dairy industry, hopefully helping in the resuscitation the flagging sector. While this final view is overly complicated and may be reading too far into the situation, it can be seen as logical. Granted, though, it is not necessarily the most effective means to the desired end.

In the end, who can say why this travesty is taking place? No one from the Chinese side is saying anything and there is no clear explanation as to why this move would benefit anyone in the long- or short-term. Also, I thought is was the Chinese stuff that was dangerous…

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