I recently had a conversation with my dad where he opined authoritatively that China's boom would bust because its environment was being despoiled so quickly. I said, uh, European and American cities were putrid balls of toxins during the Industrial Revolution. Then advances came about that fixed most of the problems. The same will happen in China.

So today I come across an article in the London Times about New Year's rice dumplings.

"Ms Wang was happy to queue because she was confident a well-known shop would not try to flout food safety rules, a big temptation in get-rich-quick China."

Hm. It seems the market is on its way to taking care of bad food in China.

"Mr Jiao sold about 70 tonnes of yuanxiao this year — that is 4.2 million rice balls. He boasts that his rice powder taps into a new-found environmental awareness among Chinese consumers. The grains are soaked for five hours and ground for 24 hours in traditional stone mills. Everything is hand-made. His customers seem appreciative. “I prefer to buy ‘green’ food,” one shopper said."

Hm. It seems the market is taking care of bad environmental practices in China.