Kottenstede, Kai --- "Transnational private food standards in the People’s Republic: Hybridization with Chinese characteristics" [2017] ELECD 639; in Verbruggen, Paul; Havinga, Tetty (eds), "Hybridization of Food Governance" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 215

Book Title: Hybridization of Food Governance

Editor(s): Verbruggen, Paul; Havinga, Tetty

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785361692

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Transnational private food standards in the People’s Republic: Hybridization with Chinese characteristics

Author(s): Kottenstede, Kai

Number of pages: 25

Abstract/Description:

Despite its economic importance and intense linkage to the world economy, China has rarely been a topic within the growing academic debate about the characteristics of transnational private regulation in the food sector so far. This case study contributes to closing this gap. It discusses transnational private food safety standards (TPS) in China, the development and the rationale behind it, and explores the nature of the hybridization of food safety regulation in the People’s Republic. It finds hybridization with Chinese characteristics, so to speak, in which the government makes use of the benchmarking mechanism to keep control over TPS. One central motivation for retailers to invest in the establishment of private standards was to safeguard themselves against the increased risks and potentially new risks that derived from globally spread supply chains. Retailers (and increasingly producers) therefore request certification against a private standard from their suppliers regardless of where they are located, whether in developed countries or developing countries. This way, private standards project regulation across national borders. This establishes the transnational dimension of private standards, as regulatory governance has a transnational dimension when ‘regulation can have behavioural effects across territorial borders, while being driven by private constituents’. Therefore, such private standards will be referred to as transnational private standards. This chapter focuses on collective international food safety standards that apply third party certification. This, however, does not imply that TPS float freely in the air, unconnected and unaffected by public regulation. Rather, these standards need to be interpreted within the respective domestic settings.