Credit: CFP
AsianFin -- China is grappling with its worst food safety scandal in nearly two decades after hundreds of children were diagnosed with lead poisoning at a kindergarten in the northwestern city of Tianshui, prompting a national reckoning over local governance failures.
Authorities in Gansu province said Sunday that 10 local officials are under investigation in connection with the incident, which has sparked widespread criticism over delayed responses, data falsification, and apparent efforts to cover up the crisis.
The scandal centers on the privately run Peixin Kindergarten in Tianshui’s Maiji district, where a cook allegedly used lead-based paint to decorate food served to children. Despite testing being carried out for over a year, local hospitals failed to raise any red flags. Parents only discovered their children had been poisoned after independently seeking medical tests in the neighboring province of Shaanxi.
An official investigation later revealed that both the city’s main hospital and the provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention had falsified test results. A total of 247 children, 28 staff members, and five former students have been found to have elevated lead levels, according to the probe team.
Eight individuals — including the kindergarten’s owner and principal — have been detained, while officials from the Maiji district education bureau and market supervision bureau are now under investigation for allegedly accepting bribes and failing to enforce safety inspections. The education bureau had reportedly ignored illegal enrollments and had not conducted food safety checks at private kindergartens in the past two years.
Commentary published by Caixin on Monday questioned whether the data falsification was driven by “pressure or profit,” and warned that “every opportunity to act was missed” due to “corruption and inaction.” The article criticized the reliance on top-down intervention, arguing that it signals “greater governance risks.”
A political scientist, speaking anonymously, said the slow response reflected how local officials often “try to avoid taking responsibility” and operate within a “passive feedback mechanism” that restricts public access to information.
Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times, called the incident a wake-up call for China's food safety system. “This is chaos in food safety governance,” he said, adding that the Tianshui authorities' initial attempts at concealment underscored a deeper failure in public accountability.
“They thought the public would accept their monopoly on information,” Hu wrote. “This is a serious mistake in governance.”
In the wake of the scandal, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation issued new food safety guidelines for schools on Monday in a bid to restore public trust.
The Tianshui case is the most serious food safety incident in China since the 2008 melamine-tainted milk crisis, which sickened some 300,000 children. While central authorities have vowed zero tolerance for cover-ups, the latest episode raises renewed concerns about entrenched problems in local bureaucracies and the fragility of grassroots oversight.
