KEY POINTS:
Angry Chinese talkback callers say New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra should apologise instead of just pushing the blame onto the Chinese for the tainted milk that killed two babies, says WTV radio host and reporter Ling Ling Liang.
"They say the most credible thing Fonterra can do now
is to say sorry," said Ms Liang.
Fonterra, which owns 43 per cent of San Lu Group which made the milk powder, said that it was a case of sabotage. David Soh, editor of Auckland Chinese newspaper Mandarin Pages, said: "Although it is hard to say who is to blame or whether it really is food terrorism, the saddest part is that the victims are innocent babies."
He said Chinese readers had been writing to his newspaper to express "anger at the lack of ethics" in the infant formula scandal.
Late on Tuesday, China said it found melamine in 69 batches of milk powder produced by 22 different companies.
The companies included China's most established dairy firms, Yili Industrial Group, Meng Niu Dairy Group and Torador Dairy Industry.
Melamine can be used to disguise low protein levels in milk.
Fonterra has also recalled one batch of prenatal milk, sold only in China under its own Anmum Materna brand name and made under licence by San Lu using local raw milk which may have been tainted.
On Tuesday, the New Zealand Food Safety Authority said it had been testing all infant formula and other products that might include Chinese dairy ingredients.
So far, none of the products tested had shown any contamination with melamine, it said.
But businesswoman Sandy Li said she had stopped buying her favourite Taiwanese milk tea after reading reports that the Hong Kong government had issued a warning against Taiwan-produced drinks found to be made with milkpowder from the San Lu Group.
Ms Li, a regular contributor tothe Chinese discussion forum skykiwi.com, says there have not been too many opinions about the scandal on the site, but there were postings with updated news from China and links to overseas reports.
"We are all very concerned about how this will affect us Asians here, but we don't get reports in New Zealand news outlets about things like what's banned and what's still being sold at Asian grocery shops here."
National MP Pansy Wong, New Zealand's only Chinese MP, said she was closely monitoring developments on the tainted milk in China.
"Fonterra must show that the same high safety standards practised in New Zealand [are] also done in companies like San Lu, [in] which it has a stake," she said.
"It is not just New Zealand's reputation, but lives of babies are at stake here."
