In recent years, food safety has become an issue of huge concern. Scandals involving product contamination or the illegal use of banned additives have been repeatedly exposed to the public, like melamine in infant milk powder and the recent clenbuterol in pig's feed. In the milk powder scandal in 2008, the illegal use of melamine added to dairy products to increase their protein count left six infants dead and 300,000 others ill.

To address this life-threatening hazard, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, approved the proposal of adding in the Criminal Law a death penalty to punish those who commit food safety crimes on February 25, 2011.

According to the revised law, those who contaminate food products with banned substances, or sell such products, could be sentenced to death if the products consumption results in deaths or other severe consequences. Apart from criminal sanction, violators will also be heavily fined.

This revision leads to hot debate on whether death penalty will solve the issue of food safety. Those in favor of the penalty believe that it will be an effective deterrent to potential offenders, saying the law also shows the government's commitment in punishing the culprits. However, others maintain that enterprises' credibility and the government's market supervision and management system, rather than harsh penalties, are the real solutions to the problem.