China's knockback

Beijing has rejected consignments of pork from the US and Canada because they contain a banned additive – in spite of a domestic shortage of China's staple meat, which pushed inflation to a 10-year high in August.

 The body that polices food import standards said the 8.37
tons of frozen pork kidney and 24 tons of frozen pork chops were returned after
the discovery of ractopamine residue.
However, China says its treatment of the pork imports is
consistent with its 2002 ban on the use of the additive in feedstock and water
used to rear animals.
Ractopamine is an adrenal stimulant used to make pork more
lean. The European Union has had a similar ban on its use in animals since
1996, China says.
The shipment sizes are tiny in a market supplied by local
farmers rearing 500m-600m pigs a year but it is politically symbolic at a time of
crisis in the local market.
Inflation reached 6.5 per cent in August, mainly because of
a 49.2 per cent year-on-year rise that month in the price of staple meats,
triggered by a shortage of pigs and the flow-on from higher feed prices.