The 2001 State Council Regulation provides that it is prohibited to import or sell any agricultural GM products listed in the inventory of the 2002 Administrative Measures on the Labeling of Agricultural GMOs without a proper label. The GM label should be made by the unit or individual responsible for the production and packaging.118 The label should clearly
indicate the names of the main raw materials containing GMO ingredients in the product. If there is any special requirement on the scope of sale, the specific scope shall be identified and the product should be sold within that identified scope.119 Any advertisements of agricultural GMOs should be examined and approved by the MOA before they can be published, broadcasted, set and posted to the public.120
More detailed requirements of GMOs labelling are provided by the 2002 MOA Labelling Measures. The Measures require all the approved agricultural GMOs products should be correctly labelled and aiming to prevent unlabeled or mislabeled GMOs products be imported or sale in the territory of China. It also provides that the agricultural agency at or above the county level is responsible for the supervision and administration of the GMOs labelling. The AQSIQ is responsible to check the GM labelling at the port of import.121 If the labelling on the package is difficult (for example, at the fast food restaurant or retail business), the labelling may be made by special identification on price tag, separate GM tag, or special identification at the outside of the container.122 The GM labelling should be in Chinese language and the GM labelling of imported agricultural GMOs should be sent to the MOA for approval and to the AQSIQ and Ministry of Commerce for record before it can be used. The time limit for the
117 Ibid, Art 27. 118 Ibid, Art.28. 119 Ibid, Art.29. 120 Ibid, Art.30. 121 2002 MOA Labelling Measures, Art.4. 122 Ibid, Art.8
4
examination for GM labelling is 30 days.123
Unlike the European Union, Chinese law has not yet provided technical means or standards for GMO detection or a threshold for GM labelling. If any GM content is found by the agricultural agency at or above county level, a label needs to be used. The 2002 MOA Labelling Measures provides three kinds of labels for intentional release to environment. The first way is labelling GMOs and the products containing GMOs ingredient as ‘genetically modified XX’. Secondly, the directly processed product of agricultural GMOs should be labeled as ‘processed GM XX product’ or ‘processed from GM XX material’. Finally, if a product if processed from GM material however the GM ingredient of the product is no longer contained or detectable, it should be labeled as ‘processed product from agricultural GMOs but the relevant GMOs may not be contained’. Labelling is not the only way available to put the GM products under control, but it is a common way for this kind of product in many countries. For example, both in the EU countries and China adopted mandatory labelling requirements. It is increasingly used by the government for reasons of administration and protection of consumer interests regarding to not only GM products but also to many other agricultural and industrial products in China. In the inventory annexed to the 2002 MOA Labelling Measures, 5 groups of GM products must be labelled before sale and most of them are major agricultural imports. The 5 groups of products which are subject to the mandatory labelling requirement include: Group 1: soybean seeds, soybeans, soybean powder, soybean oil and soybean meal; Group 2, corn seeds, corn, corn oil and corn flour; Group 3, rapeseed for planting, rape seeds, rapeseed oil, rapeseed meal; Group 4, cottonseed; and Group 5, tomato seed, fresh tomato, tomato sauce. This list since it was published in 2002 has not been updated since.
In October 2015, the newly implemented Law on Food Safety (promulgated by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee) will incorporated existing regulations on biotechnology labelling into law and it also makes legally mandate GMOs labelling instead of referring to relevant regulations as discussed above. In other words, the 2002 MOA Labelling
4
Measures requires the labelling of approved agricultural biotech products and prohibit the importation and sale of any unlabelled or mislabeled products. The 2015 Food Safety Law codifies into law existing biotechnology labelling regulations. For example, Article 69 states that producers will pay the penalty if GMOs products are not properly labeled.124
In addition to these new labelling requirements, the misleading advertisement have also recently become the subject of controlling measures. In January 2015, the Ministry of the Agriculture released the Notice Concerning Guidance for GMO-related Advertisements, which required the competent agricultural authorities at the provincial level to work with the local commerce authorities as well as the food and drug authorities to strengthen the supervision over advertisements related to GMOs. The Notice explicitly “prohibits the use of ‘non-GMO’ in advertisements of products made of crops where no genetically modified version has been approved for sale in China or where no genetically modified version exists.”125 Non-GMO labels can be used for products for which genetically modified versions are available, but the labelling must be accurate and cannot use misleading words such as ‘healthier’ or ‘safer’.126