No one is talking about murder yet, but it’s just a matter of time. The latest food quality scandal in China is humming along steadily at the moment, with accusations flying, arrests being made, and protestations being hastily issued by restauranteurs and others in the food biz.

All this turmoil just because mutton was replaced with rat and fox meat to save a few shekels? Apparently so. As of last month, we only had to worry about whether our lamb was being fried in “gutter oil,” but that’s now old news. These days, you need to worry about whether that “lamb” that’s being fried in gutter oil is in fact lamb or some other animal, perhaps one with whiskers and sharp, pointy teeth.

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As someone who has been writing legal newsletters (or similar) for about 15 years, I speak with authority on this subject. I’ve also helped to train a boatload of lawyers with respect to drafting a variety of documents, both formal and informal.

The problem is that most lawyers are wholly unfamiliar with the concept of “audience.” Let me use the example of acronyms, since this will help me get to the point that much faster. Say you’re a private practice lawyer writing a brief email to your client, specifically an in-house lawyer who specializes in PRC corporate law. Would it be acceptable to use “MOFCOM” to indicate the Ministry of Commerce in that email? I would say yes.

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A while back, I wrote about the feud between the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC) and, well, itself, specifically Beijing (aka headquarters) and its sub-commissions in Shanghai and Shenzhen. The latter two went rogue, with Beijing saying that the “CIETAC” moniker was no longer available to them and that anyone choosing to arbitrate with CIETAC in those locations would have to go through Beijing from now on.

The inevitable break between these organizations has occurred, and now both Shenzhen and Shanghai must go it alone without the valuable CIETAC brand. Good luck to them, but as a recent article put out by law firm Hogan Lovells illustrates quite well, bizarre and complicated branding is not going to help.

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Great post by Rachel at Tea Leaf Nation on whether China’s new leaders, some of which have law degrees, will be more likely to work on rule of law issues. My conclusion: maybe, but not because they have law degrees. Most of the post is devoted to netizen chatter on this issue, and I particularly enjoyed these bits:

While some hold high hopes that this means China will usher in a golden age of the rule of law, others are not so optimistic. Many have pointed out that Saddam Hussein and Fidel Castro also had law degrees. User @Joey_Gillatt wrote, “If those who studied law would attach more importance to law, then Hitler would have supported the arts, Mao would have supported education for teachers and Stalin would have supported the Russian Orthodox Church.”

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The decision by China’s government last week to abolish its railways ministry could have three possible consequences, which have raised concerns among the public after plans to scrap the debt-laden and scandal-ridden ministry were initially welcomed. (WantChinaTimes)

The article from which I grabbed that quote is entitled “Public fear higher prices as China’s railways ministry scrapped,” which tells you all you need to know. I don’t have a lot to say here, just a simple observation: of all the concerns that the public have about China’s railways, I think high prices, while important, should probably not be at the top of the list.

Or to put it another way: if because of restructuring, it is less likely that the train you take will end up taking a header off a bridge or smashing head-on into another locomotive, the public will no doubt accept some reasonably higher prices. And let’s try to remain optimistic here; as corruption is one of the reasons for the restructuring in the first place, perhaps there will be some savings in the offing! You never know.