THE adage "Food is heaven" has held sway in the Chinese history since ancient time.

For centuries the nation's ingenuous cooks, court chefs and street snack vendors alike have demonstrated the enduring truth of that saying with their near-religious commitment to preparing and creating ever-tastier dishes.

Their efforts have made China a paradise for gourmands.

Yet with the advent of modern kitchen chemistry, cracks are appearing in this paradise.

The frequency of new cases of harmful food additives leaves little time to dwell on past food safety fiascoes.

Two weeks ago we were still reeling from the tainted pork outrage, in which lean meat- promoting chemicals, officially banned a decade ago, were again found to be fed to pigs.

No sooner had the tainted pork disappeared from the public radar than steamed buns emerged as the new threat on dinner tables.

China Central Television reported last week that some Shanghai-made steamed buns, a staple of Chinese breakfast, were dyed yellow to make them look like corn buns, which cost more than standard ones.

The erring business, Shanghai Shenglu Food Co, also recycled buns past sell-by dates and mixed them with new dough and such additives as saccharin to pass them off as "fresh" buns.

'Shorter leg'

The expose afforded glimpses into the extent of the malpractice: a female worker blurted out that there was no way to turn a profit if they used real corn extracts instead of color formers.

Subsequent quality raids carried out nationwide discovered the same dyed buns in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, where workshops with poor sanitation churned out "corn" buns without using a single corn kernel.

Intermittent major food safety debacles and the growing numbers of fatalities have apparently weighed heavily on the mind of Premier Wen Jiabao, who said during a meeting on April 14 with senior Party historians and counselors that while China as a society has made big strides over the past 30 years, lax morality has remained the "shorter leg" compared to economic growth.

Wen went on to cite a string of high-profile food safety scandals - fake dairy powder, "pigs on steroids," swill oil, dyed buns - as evidence that "the lack of integrity and decline of morality have approached inconceivably alarming levels."

It was the second time this year that the business community, property developers in particular, has drawn flak from the premier over its moral deficiencies.

This time his warnings are more dire: "Without the support of improved national ethos and moral power, China will not become a respected and powerful country."

Few would openly take issue with this claim, but in reality morality often comes at a financial price, hence doing the right thing is an afterthought to things that usually come to mind first, for instance, business profits.

The moral deterioration plaguing Chinese society is not the product of just a few individuals' or entities' loss of moral compass.

It reflects widespread moral nihilism, a belief that it no longer pays to play by the rules, that fair play only undermines one's advantage and invites scorn from unscrupulous competitors.

Take the fake buns case. As the sleaze is industry-wide, conscientious food merchants who add more spoonfuls of powdered corn to their raw ingredients will almost certainly be weeded out of the market, as they must charge higher prices for the "same" products that unethical competitors sell for several fen less apiece.

It appears that Gresham's law, which says bad money can drive good money out of circulation, also applies in the moral realm.

Fault lines

Things were not that dismal two decades ago.

Although that was also a time when inferior goods proliferated, things vital to the general well-being of Chinese civilization - moderation and modesty - could still hold.

Many people were receptive to the teachings of Confucius, that gentlemen crave wealth insofar as the means of acquiring it are appropriate.

Fault lines and outright ruptures appeared in the 1990s amid a national clamor for quick success. The very first step toward achieving that success was to loosen the moral straitjacket. Moderation thus gave way to brashness. Wheeling and dealing prevailed.

A host of catchphrases, such as neng ren jing ji, or "economy of meritocracy," provided the thinly veiled excuse for some to work the system to their benefit. They were rewarded, in some cases even idolized, for plundering in the name of privatization.

Failed education is equally to blame for the spread of misguided notions of success and decline of morality. Of all TV entertainment programs, the dating show is probably the most popular genre. It has flourished through savvy exploitation of young girls' fancy dreams of marrying into a higher class and enjoying a life of conspicuous splendor.

They laugh at poverty but not at prostitution. This says a lot about their education. Did their parents vigorously reject the morbid influence of this brainwashing campaign? Or did they quietly acquiesce to it?

Economist Lang Xianping wrote in the Oriental Morning Post on April 15 that the vulgarity of TV dating shows is not the fault of "material girls," not even of the program itself, but is the natural result of the urge to pander to crass public taste.

The premise of money worship is that one must have a "soul," otherwise, it will turn into a monster that poisons the future generations, Lang noted.

Unfortunately, we have seen plenty of such "soulless" officials behind the latest food safety debacles.

Xinhua reported on Tuesday that some local quality watchdogs had collected fines from businesses in exchange for conducting lousy quality checks in their offices, rather than on food production sites, and only on products supplied by the business to be scrutinized.

They behaved like the "stationary bandits" described by late economist Mancur Olsen who said they extorted their victims, but did not squeeze them to the brink of bankruptcy, thus to ensure steady benefits.

Responsible quality supervision officials, however, complained that they couldn't take action against companies that were showered with patronage by their superiors, Xinhua reported.

This raises the question: how can morality and truth triumph over cynicism, fears and lies?

Blunt advisors

Premier Wen said on April 14 that to speak truth to power, it's imperative that power listens attentively.

He also invoked the words of Song Dynasty (960-1279) poet Su Shi that "a thousand yes men cannot rival a blunt advisor in significance."

Indeed, we need more advisors, fewer yes men. But they can only flourish in an environment where they have an outlet for expression and do not fear the consequences of their candor. This once was the case in enlightened ancient court politics.

By the time that enlightened day dawns, we'll perhaps hear more brave voices calling out to uncover hidden frauds in the food industry and save the Chinese heaven that is food.