ABSTRACT
China upon entering the Internet age, makes available a variety of modes of online food trading, which varies in business models due to innovation arising from the Internet. In return, China is the first mover to introduce provisions to regulate online food trading through revising its Food Safety Law. CFDA (China Food and Drug Administration), China’s principal food regulatory agency then created a few measures on the basis of the aforementioned provisions. China’s online food trading continuingly evolves to become an international element through cross-border food e-commerce, which gives huge opportunities to other economies. However, it also poses challenges for existing international food trade regimes. Foods entering into China’s domestic market through cross-border e-commerce make compliance with China’s food safety standards and labeling rules an issue, which may in return cause government regulation a capacity deficit. However, government regulation is compensated with co-regulation mechanism. Online third-party platforms are mandated to regulate those food operators selling foods via the platforms. Any violations of law from the food business operators, the platforms might be punished as well. It is quite a controversy even in the western countries. In the United States and EU, for instance, some online platforms in the name of shared economy like Uber, Airbnb, Eatwith, are considering themselves as purely match-makers and nothing more than those. So the platforms think they should be immune from punishments from any wrongdoings by businesses operating on the platforms. Nevertheless, since the online platforms tend to heavily involve in food businesses, public and private co-regulation gains more and more recognition. We see growing food SMEs operate food businesses within platforms so they in return have momentum to be a co-regulator for food safety.
