Progress against dog & cat fur in China

[Guest guest]

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2006:

 

Progress against dog & cat fur in China

 

" Senior officials in the Chinese

government yesterday vowed to stamp out the trade

in cat and dog fur which they described as

'illegal and barbaric,' " European Parliament

member Struan Stevenson's office announced from

Brussels on May 24, 2006.

The announcement appeared to represent a

major milestone in the long march toward the

passage of humane laws in the world's most

populous nation.

According to Stevenson, the officials he met

with described the cruelties of the cat and dog

fur trade as violations of general humane

statutes which do not yet exist.

From a western perspective, pledging to

enforce laws which do not exist might be taken as

an empty propaganda ploy. In the Confucian

context of Chinese government, the ploy might be

as much toward the Chinese public as toward the

outsiders.

Either way, the Chinese officials

reportedly acknowledged the importance of humane

concerns.

At the State Forestry Administration

headquarters in Beijing, Stevenson met with

deputy forestry administration chair Zhao Xuemin

and five other senior officials, including Chen

Runsheng, secretary general of the China

Wildlife Conservation Association.

Chen Runsheng has already facilitated the

phase-out of many of China's oldest and most

abusive bear bile farms. He has also enabled the

Animals Asia Foundation to operate a sanctuary

for retired bile farm bears near Chengdu, has

curtailed feeding live prey to large carnivores

at zoos, has worked to suppress the use of rare

species in traditional Chinese medicine, and has

pursued many other actions seeking to reduce

animal suffering and exploitation.

" The State Forestry Administration in

China is the government department responsible

for all animal welfare issues, " Stevenson said.

" I met with the top officials who deal with these

policy areas, and gave them a copy of a graphic

DVD filmed recently at an animal market outside

Beijing, which shows dogs and cats being skinned

alive. They were horrified by this evidence.

" Mr Zhao said to me, 'Chinese law

prohibits the barbarian practice of skinning

animals alive or indeed any kind of cruelty. We

have no tradition in China of wearing fur made

from dogs and cats and for centuries have

regarded such animals as friends and pets.

However, we cannot deny that incidents of

cruelty do occur, such as those you have brought

to our attention. Sadly this barbaric trade is

driven by economic factors. But, these cases

you have mentioned have made a strong impression

on us and we will make renewed efforts to stamp

out these barbaric practices. "

Zhao Xuemin, Chen Runsheng, and the

others were almost certainly already aware of the

actions shown on the DVD, first exposed to the

world on February 2, 2005 at press conferences

convened by Swiss Animal Protection, the

Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan, and Care

For The Wild, of Britain. The video actually

depicts the Shangcun Market in Hebei province,

relatively far from Beijing. The market

reputedly handles about 60% of the Chinese fur

trade.

On April 5, 2005, Beijing News

photographer Chen Jie and reporter Wu Xuejan

unflinchingly affirmed the authenticity of the

video, after visiting the market themselves.

They added critical coverage of the conditions

under which tanuki dogs and foxes are raised for

fur. " At present China has no national animal

welfare legislation, " Wu Xuejan wrote. " Only

the China Wildlife Protection Law and the

Regulations on the Licensing of the Rearing and

Breeding of Protected Wildlife of National

Importance contain some sections covering the

management of wildlife breeding. "

The Beijing News exposé of live skinning

was only one of many exposés of cruelty published

in Chinese government media in recent years, with

escalating frequency since the Sudden Acute

Respiratory Syndrome epidemic of 2004 brought

home to many officials that ill treatment of

animals has effects that ripple destructively

throughout human society.

The emergence and rapid suppression of

so-called " crush " videos at a Chinese web site

earlier in 2006 was especially noteworthy for the

public outrage roused by the torture killing of

just one kitten. Twenty-three delegates to the

National Committree of the Chinese People's

Political Consultative Conference cosponsored a

resolution by member Han Wei calling for the

passage of national anti-cruelty legislation.

The Hainan Animal Protection Association

announced amid the furor that it expects the

Hainan government to introduce the first humane

law in China before the end of the year. Similar

reports indicate that the city of Beijing may

have a humane law in place before the 2008

Olympic Games. The official Xinhua News Agency

prominently mentioned both the Hainan and Beijing

legislative interest.

Cats have been boiled and eaten in

Guangdong since circa 1350, but the practice did

not catch on elsewhere in China. The public

response on behalf of the kitten killed in the

" crush " video may have significantly strengthened

Beijing in dealing with Guangdong, the economic

hub of southern mainland China, but a city whose

globally notorious treatment of animals has long

been a national embarrassment.

Historically, the Guangdong attitude

toward direction from Beijing, on any topic, has

been that " The mountains are high, and the

emperor is far away. " Managed famines meant to

starve Guangdong into submission killed millions

of people as recently as the 1950s, and helped

to reinforce the regional habit of eating

" everything with legs except the table. "

Now that Guangdong has become among the

most affluent parts of China, dictating policy

to the region has become especially sensitive,

lest orders be defied and the defiant attitude

spread. Thus, before Beijing moves against

anything Guangdong does, the rulers like to be

sure that the Beijing recommendations have broad

national support.

Both SARS and the H5N1 avian flu are

known to have jumped into humans from the

Guangdong region. The dog meat and fur farms of

the region appear to be the last major reservoirs

of canine rabies in China, and conservationists

have charged for more than 15 years that the

Guangdong live markets are sucking wildlife out

of the whole of South Asia, even depleting

turtle populations as far away as the Carolinas

in the U.S.

All of this, however, was beyond the scope of Stevenson's meeting.

Summarized Stevenson, " I will now report

to Commissioner Kyprianou, the European

Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, that there

will be no opposition in China to his proposed

directive banning the import, export and trade in

cat and dog skins across the European Union.

Indeed, the senior government officials in

Beijing made quite clear that they would regard

an E.U. ban as helpful in their fight to stamp

out this cruel trade. Commissioner Kyprianou can

now proceed with all possible speed to get

approval for an outright ban. "

ANIMAL PEOPLE received the Struan

Stevenson e-mail first from actor/director Dennis

Erdman, whom we knew as a committed animal

advocate long before becoming aware of his

celebrity status.

" I just received this and wanted you to

see it immediately, " Erdman said. " As you know,

I have been working on this with the McCartneys

[Paul and Heather] and Struan Stevenson for about

three years. My trajectory started with my

correspondence with you. Let's hope this is the

real thing. "

Minutes later, Erdman forwarded

Stevenson's complete minutes of his meeting in

Beijing, which provided more about the larger

context.

Zhao Xuemin " thanked me for my concern which, he

said, the Chinese share, " Stevenson began.

" 'In China, plants and animals have

rights,' he said, 'just as they have in the

E.U. We have laws to protect and preserve them,'

he said. 'Cats and dogs are our friends, and

many families in China have these animals as

pets. But we have never encouraged farming cats

and dogs for their fur. However, there is

clearly demand in the EU for these products,

which encourages illegal smuggling.

" I am against the export of such items, "

Zhao Xuemin told Stevenson, " but although our

law strictly prohibits this trade, market demand

in the EU keeps it going. "

Added Chen Runsheng, " In the media we

occasionally see cases of animals being skinned

alive. These are isolated cases, because

skinning an animal alive negatively affects the

quality of the fur, so it is a practice which is

simply avoided by people in the fur trade. It

could be that some of these films and stories in

the media are made for some ulterior motive, "

Chen Runsheng suggested. " But even for these

isolated cases the Chinese government takes

action and has laws to solve these problems. We

carry out spot checks and inspections of fur

farms, and we prosecute anyone transgressing the

law.

" In China, " Chen Runsheng continued,

" cats and dogs cannot be reared for their fur.

Only specified animals are approved for this

purpose. I reiterate, cats and dogs are our

friends and pets. There is no market for these

cat and dog fur items in China. Coats and other

items made from cat and dog fur are against our

tradition. You should do something in the E.U. to

outlaw this trade. "

 

What the announcement means

 

The Zhao Xuemin and Chen Runsheng

statements, while welcomed globally, were

somewhat perplexing to much of the animal

protection community, including the Animals Asia

Foundation, founded by Jill Robinson in 1998,

after she had spent 12 years as Hong Kong

representative for the International Fund for

Animal Welfare.

" We called Chen Runsheng yesterday, "

Robinson e-mailed on May 25, " and confirm the

positive news that China welcomes the E.U. ban of

trade in dog and cat fur. This means that the

government does not encourage the industry. The

sticking point, " Robinson anticipated, " will be

banning such trade within China. Whilst Chen

Runsheng stated that [the government] is against

animal cruelty and abuse, and therefore strongly

against the live skinning of dogs and cats, there

is no law or regulation prohibiting the use of

their fur. It seems that this issue does not

fall under either State Forestry or China

Wildlife Conservation Association remit and there

are no moves to implement any action within the

country at all.

" What is particularly worrying are the

stories coming out of this where 'humane

slaughter' is raised, " Robinson continued. " If

China brings in 'humane slaughter' of dogs and

cats for food or fur, we have lost everything,

and compromise decades of work by groups in other

countries of Asia. "

" China exports the vast majority of the

world's fur, " added Animals Asia Foundation

executive director Anne Mather. " Currently there

are no animal welfare laws [in China] to protect

fur-bearing animals, including domestic dogs and

cats, from the most barbaric treatment

imaginable. The Animals Asia team have routinely

witnessed first hand unbearably small barren

cages, violent handling, inhumane transport,

and brutal slaughter. "

Contrary to several of Zhao Xuemin and

Chen Runsheng's statements, there has been a

secondary market for dog and cat pelts in parts

of China for centuries, as a byproduct of the

dog and cat meat industry. Recently the demand

for cheap fur has allegedly expanded enough that

some producers are now raising dogs and cats more

for pelts than for meat.

But Zhao Xuemin and Chen Runsheng were

both right on the money in pointing out that this

development was fueled by European demand.

European indulgence in cheap fur has been fed in

the past by the Atlantic Canadian seal hunt in

the 1970s, muskrats and nutria trapped in the

U.S. in record volume during the 1980s, dog and

cat fur from the pelt-selling budkas [pounds] of

eastern Europe, and the live markets of China

after most of the old-style budkas were replaced

in recent years by western-style humane societies

and animal control agencies.

" Cheap Chinese fur, including the pelts

of cats and dogs, is flooding into Britain and

the E.U., " Care For The Wild charged on April

15, 2006. " The rise of Internet shopping and

the anonymity it affords have led to a shocking

increase in the availability of Asian fur

online. " Care For The Wild chief executive

Barbara Maas claimed she was " able to purchase

the skins of household pets over the Internet,

paying less than £10 for a dog pelt.

" We were also offered skins of domestic

cats for less than £2.60, " Maas testified.

" In a two-hour snap survey conducted this

spring, I found more garments and accessories

made from, or containing Chinese fur than I was

able to carry home, " Maas continued. " They

included coats, shawls, t-shirts, handbags,

shoes and scarves. Some items were on sale for

as little as £5.00. Despite industry denials,

one retailer admitted that " Everyone sources

[fur] from China now--it is much easier and

cheaper to obtain. "

British Fur Trade Association figures

show that Britain has in recent years imported

more fur than any other nation, Care For The

Wild charged. British retail fur sales fell from

£80 million in 1984 to £11 million in 1989,

bringing the closure of 175 of the then-200

British retail fur stores. Britain eventually

banned mink farming. Yet the British Fur Trade

Association claimed a 35% sales increase in

2000-2001, seemingly reversing many years of

pro-animal progress.

The partial recovery of the British fur

trade illustrates the difficulty of lastingly

changing human behavior toward animals in either

Britain, widely considered the most

animal-loving of nations, or China, parts of

which may be among the most animal-abusive.

Even though the overwhelming majority of

British people don't buy or wear fur, and never

did, fur is again seen in London because

fur-wearing is an entrenched habit among a high

percentage of those who ever wore it, reinforced

by the approval of their peer group, little

affected by the norms of society beyond their

peers.

Fur-wearing might be suppressed in

Britain if the non-fur-wearing majority chose to

outlaw fur, including imports of real fur

products that are mistaken for fake, but while

most British people have already been moved to

not wear fur, for various reasons of culture,

compassion, and economics, the number of

fur-wearers probably still exceeds the number of

voters and taxpayers who would commit government

resources to putting the British fur trade out of

business.

 

Confucian approach

 

It is axiomatic in politics that a

candidate may be elected with only 51% support

from a constituency, and legislation may be

passed with only 51% support from a governing

body, but legislation cannot be effectively

enforced unless fewer than 5% of the public are

either actively violating it, or are inclined to

ignore and even assist violators. Otherwise the

enforcement burden becomes much greater than the

society is willing to sustain.

Few governments are more aware of this

reality than the rulers of China. While China is

far from a democracy in any respect, including

outward pretense, it is a " People's Republic " in

the sense that almost everyone in political

authority understands that the people must be

willing to cooperate with any sort of successful

change. Most Chinese old enough to hold senior

governing positions have personal memories of the

Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward,

as omnipresent reminders of what can happen when

a government tries to impose sweeping change by

mandate, instead of allowing the society to grow

into it.

If there is one political consensus in

China, shared by both the most ardent proponents

of democracy and the most conservative wing of

the Communist Party, it is that no one wants to

live through those " interesting times " again.

Post-Mao tse Tung, the once radical and

fanatical Chinese variant of Communism has

morphed back toward the Confucian philosophy of

governance which has historically been the only

approach to succeed in a geographically unified

China. Characteristic of Confucian government is

day-to-day rule by bureaucracy, which prevents

instability through regulating the pace of change.

The goal of Confucian rulers is not to

deny change, but rather to introduce it element

by element, bringing the pieces together at just

the right time to avoid resistance. The

institutional goal is to facilitate change, which

Confucianism sees as inevitable, without

provoking conflict.

As an authoritarian system of government,

Confucianism expects laws to be obeyed. Yet

because Confucianism seeks to impose only laws

which will be obeyed, it shares with democracy

an inclination to draw authority from what the

U.S. Declaration of Independence calls 'the just

consent of the governed. "

All of this is context for understanding

the importance of the Chinese federal government

response to the live skinning of animals for fur,

farming bears for their bile, and the rising

clamor from individual Chinese for the passage of

national anti-cruelty legislation.

Western animal advocates are often

frustrated by Chinese leaders who speculate about

whether China is " ready " for an anti-cruelty law,

because from the western perspective, the mere

existence of an abuse is reason enough to pass a

law now, and worry about enforcement later.

From the Confucian perspective, however,

an unenforced law is a demonstration of

governmental weakness. When a law is introduced,

Chinese leadership wants to feel assured that the

overwhelming majority of Chinese citizens will

obey it, will put peer pressure on those who do

not, will cooperate with law enforcement in

crackdowns against scofflaws, and will not

complain that the enforcement effort is drawing

attention and resources away from other serious

problems.

The latter is relatively more important

in China than in western democracies, because in

western democracies the existence of

institutional opposition accommodates perpetual

dissent. Incorporating dissent into the

governing structure may be the most stabilizing

aspect of western-style democracy. There is no

similar feature in Confucian government, which

treats dissent as a potential prelude to

conflict, either to be suppressed if the

dissenters are few, or avoided if they are many.

In this light, the statements of Zhao

Xuemin and Chen Runsheng that live skinning and

other forms of cruelty to animals are already

illegal in China bear further scrutiny. From a

Confucian perspective, Zhao Xuemin and Chen

Runsheng may have been saying that China is ready

at last for humane legislation to be enforced. By

claiming that humane legislation already exists,

Zhao Xuemin and Chen Runsheng may be creating the

expectation of enforcement. Their remarks might

be taken as implying that any new legislation

will be to reinforce existing norms and values,

not to change them.

By portraying a big change as no change,

Zhao Xuemin and Chen Runsheng defined those who

practice cruelty as the people who dissent from

the norm and introduce conflict.

This, in a Confucian society, is a

great leap forward in achieving a genuine

cultural revolution.

From a western perspective, there is reason for anxiety and mistrust.

Around the world, animal advocates have had

decades and in some nations centuries of

experience with laws being passed with so many

structural weaknesses that they either codify the

status quo or cannot be enforced--like the 1991

South Korean law against public consumption of

unsightly and disgusting foods. Supposedly

passed to curtail dog and cat eating, the 1991

law preceded booms in both, driven by rising

affluence.

The boom has now receded, as the

dog-and-cat-eating portion of the South Korean

population ages and diminishes. Yet there are

still enough dog and cat eaters in positions of

influence to have stalled efforts to pass a

stronger general humane law for more than three

years. At issue is whether the new law will

distinguish between dogs and cats raised as pets

and those raised as meat. Recognizing a

distinction would in effect legalize eating dogs

and cats.

The 1996 Philippine law against

dog-eating, providing an exemption for

traditional Igarot ritual practices, is another

example. Although authentic Igarot dog-eating is

rare, as Igarot guest columnist Bing Dawang

explained in the November 2003 edition of ANIMAL

PEOPLE, the exemption became a pretext for the

continued existence of a dog meat restaurant

trade which was never part of Igarot culture. In

April 2006 the Animals Asia Foundation helped

Philippine groups to fight off an attempt by dog

meat restauranteurs--who should have been long

gone--to repeal the 1996 law.

 

Implementing change

 

Jill Robinson is accordingly rightly

worried about the Chinese discussion of " humane "

methods of killing dogs and cats for fur and

meat. The Chinese government might compromise to

avoid conflict with the relatively small but

influential dog-and-cat-eating population,

strongest in southern regions and coastal

provinces close to Korea. A Chinese humane law

might accept that dogs and cats may be killed,

skinned, and eaten, if the killing is done in a

prescribed manner.

Robinson's concern is that this might

legitimize a trade that animal advocates would

prefer to see abolished.

Public opinion surveying in both China

and Korea has already established that the

numbers of dog and cat eaters in both nations

have already fallen close to the threshold at

which abolition could be enforced in a western

democracy.

But the same could be said of wearing

fur, sport hunting, and fur trapping in the

U.S. and Europe.

While as few as 6% to 10% of South

Koreans and Chinese eat either dogs or cats, and

under 6% of Americans wear fur, hunt, or trap,

these activities are still culturally accepted by

most of the friends and family of the

participants.

With the base of acceptance at 30% or

more of society, and with many of the

participants (including fur buyers) tending to be

older males, holding disproportionate political

influence, abolition may still be a generation

away.

Only with active participation down to

about 1%, and with cultural acceptance down to

5%, is overt prohibition of anything really

likely to succeed.

What may be accomplished, meanwhile, is

reducing the levels of cruelty involved in

dog-eating, cat-eating, the fur trade, hunting,

and trapping, while continuing to expand

awareness that these are all inherently cruel

practices, no matter what may be done to

mitigate the suffering they cause.

This is a gamble. In China, as Robinson

and others fear, there is the risk that the

economic interest of dog and cat meat and fur

marketers will prevail over humane considerations

if laws exist which say that what they do is

" humane. "

In the U.S., we have had 47 years of

precautionary experience with the never

adequately enforced Humane Slaughter Act, and 40

years of comparably sobering experience with the

often amended Laboratory Animal Welfare Act,

which became the broader reaching Animal Welfare

Act of today in 1971.

The Animal Welfare Act is among the most

successful national humane laws worldwide,

rivaled only by the laws of Britain and India.

Yet the standards it enforces are so low and so

limited that many animal advocates tend to see it

as a failure. Overlooked is that it has been

invoked thousands of times to help put out of

business more than 90% of the sellers of dogs and

cats to laboratories, traveling circuses and

animal shows, and substandard roadside zoos that

existed when it came into effect. Eliminating

most of these obvious repositories of

institutional animal neglect has in turn

contributed to raising public expectations of

other animal use industries--and has enabled

animal advocates to challenge forms of use and

abuse which were scarcely noticed a generation

ago.

Whatever anti-cruelty legislation is

eventually adopted in China will almost certainly

exempt much that we wish to prohibit, with

frustratingly long phase-ins of enforcement and

much need for strengthening amendment. Like the

Humane Slaughter Act, it may be ineffective, or

like the Animal Welfare Act, it may seem to be

enforced so slowly that the real changes it

brings about are almost invisible from year to

year.

Yet the Confucian way is to take the long

view. As ANIMAL PEOPLE editorially pointed out

in March 2006, there are already believed to be

more than one million pet dogs in Beijing alone,

an estimated 150 million dog-keeping homes

throughout China, and up to 300 million total

pet dogs, according to the highest official

estimates. That would be 30 times more dogs than

are eaten--and almost five times as many dogs as

there are in the U.S., which has the third

largest dog population of any nation. The

Chinese ratio of pet dogs to humans is already

not less than the ratio in Britain, and may be

comparable to the ratio in the U.S. and Costa

Rica, the most dog-friendly of nations.

Pet cat-keeping, while less documented,

is believed to be likewise rapidly expanding.

Cats even seem to be achieving new status in

Guangdong, according to a Times of India news

brief issued on April 14, 2006, which recounted

that " Residents of Sanjiang, in Guangdong

province, " held a ceremony " to thank cats for

eradicating rats from their farms. The village

committee spent about $860 to purchase cats, " the

Times of India recounted, " whom they released

to control the rats. The move was a success and

villagers decided to reward the cats for the good

harvest they expect this year as a result. "

The rats arrived, necessitating the cat

release, " after snakes were caught and

slaughtered by local residents in previous

years, " the Times of India concluded.

 

Agrarian utilitarianism

 

Agrarian utilitarianism is the official

Chinese policy toward all animals other than

endangered wildlife.

One recent example would be the defense

of the bear bile industry issued on January 12,

2006 by Wang Wei, deputy director-general of the

Chinese department of wildlife conservation,

after the European Union passed a resolution

asking China to end bile farming.

Another example of agrarian utilitarian

thinking would be the recent move of the foie

gras industry into northeastern Jilin province.

The Chinese industry leader, the Jifa Grou,

partners with Delpeyrat, the second largest foie

gras producer in France, which keeps about 4.5

million ducks.

" For the past two years we have produced

about 100 metric tons of foie gras in our

Changchun factory, " Jifa Group managing director

Qi Mingce told Agence France Presse in April

2006. " That's about two-thirds of Chinese

production, force-feeding some 200,000 geese.

Our aim is to reach 1,000 metric tons over the

next five years with two million geese. "

Endangered species appear to have been

protected in China during the past 20-odd years

largely as a matter of pragmatic choice:

westerners were willing to foot the expense--

creating jobs, introducing technology, and

bringing foreign exchange to China.

While endangered species received special

status, with poachers in some cases getting the

death penalty, ruthless crackdowns on

unauthorized dog-keeping repeatedly reiterated

the " Great Leap Forward " view of pets as

parasites.

As keeping pet dogs becomes ever more

popular, however, while recent dog purges have

produced increasing internal dissent, the

Confucian way would be for Chinese leadership to

accept that pet-keeping is rapidly transforming

Chinese life and attitudes, just as occurred

earlier in the U.S. and Europe, when economic

growth enabled ever more of our populations to

distance themselves from agrarian utilitarianism.

The Confucian way would be to strive to

integrate the new paradigm with tradition, while

letting obsolescent practices wither.

There is much work to be done in China to

end dog and cat slaughter, and to outlaw extreme

forms of cruelty to other species as well, but

there is reason to be hopeful.

 

 

--

Kim Bartlett, Publisher of ANIMAL PEOPLE Newspaper

Postal mailing address: P.O. Box 960, Clinton WA 98236 U.S.A.

CORRECT EMAIL ADDRESS IS: <ANPEOPLE

Website: http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/ with

French and Spanish language subsections.

 

 

Something to think about: We believe

that the Golden Rule applies to animals, too.

We don't accept the prevailing notion that

" people come first' " or that " people are more

important than animals. " Animals feel pain and

suffer just as we do, and it is almost always

humans making animals suffer and not the other

way around. Yet in spite of how cruelly

people behave towards animals -- not to mention

human cruelty to other humans -- we are supposed

to believe that humans are superior to other

animals. If people want to fancy themselves as

being of greater moral worth than the other

creatures on this earth, we should begin

behaving better than they do, and not worse.

Let's start treating everyone as we would like to

be treated ourselves.