Front Burner - China’s ‘wet markets’ explained

Episode Date: April 20, 2020

Scientists are still trying to determine the origin of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, but a predominant theory is that it began in a "wet market" in Wuhan, China. This has put the spotlight on China's wet markets, with growing calls to shut them down entirely. But, what are these wet markets, what makes them so controversial — and why do some think a ban is the only answer? Today on Front Burner, we take a deep dive into China's world of wet markets with Peter Li, China policy specialist for the Humane Society International.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Pozzo. Five months after a contagion swept through China's Wuhan region, infecting at least two million people across the globe, scientists are still trying to understand where this deadly virus came from. Many experts think bats are likely the original

culprit. And what we do know is that most of the earliest human cases of COVID-19 trace back to a wet market in Wuhan, although possibly not patient zero. So while there are no definitive answers yet and still lots of questions, China's wet markets have been thrust into the spotlight. And lots of people, from the U.S.'s top infectious disease expert to the U.N.'s acting head of biodiversity to Paul McCartney, are calling for these markets to be shut down permanently. It's affecting the whole world. It's like whoever's responsible for this is at war with the world and itself. Inside China, some view these markets as a key facet of daily life. So today, what exactly are they?

And why are so many people calling for them to be banned? This is Frontburner. I'm joined now by Peter Li. He's a China policy specialist for the Humane Society International and an associate professor at the University of Houston downtown. Professor Li's research focuses on China's animal welfare policies, and he joins me now. Hello, Professor Li. Thank you so much for being here. Great to be here. Thank you. So in recent weeks and months, China's wet markets have come under the spotlight. And these wet markets have generated both controversy and even at times misinformation. So could we start here today?

What can you tell us about them? And are they all the same? You know, wet markets are part of rural markets in traditional China, like the Wuhan's Huanan. See for the market, that's a gigantic market. In newly reopened Wuhan, we met this man. He's shopping for tofu, vegetables and other food staples for his family. He says wet markets are essential for daily life here. And even though Western supermarkets are gaining in popularity, most still rely on places like this. A wet market accounts for no more than 10% of the business space. There are two kinds of wet markets, as a matter of fact.

One is a wet market for livestock animals, like you can get a chicken, you can get, you know, duck, mostly small livestock animals, and have these animals to be slaughtered and processed for you. But in the last 40 years, a new kind of wet market has arisen in China, and this is for wildlife animals. So this, you know, separate wet market, you can see, you know, animals like snakes, pangolins on some, you know, rare occasions, and civic cats and other, you know, wildlife animals that are supposedly allowed to be, you know, sold and you can have those animals slaughtered. But wet market for wildlife typically is like a storefront for the traders to take orders so that they can have the animals sent

directly to the restaurants. So what we see on the wildlife wet market is only about 10% of all the wildlife animals consumed slaughtered in China. So majority, you know, sent directly from the hoarding place, from the warehouse to the restaurants. You know. I take your point that about 10% of these wild animals would actually be in the wet market, and then the rest of them would be ordered directly to restaurants. But would there still be animals like this in the wet market in Wuhan? So pangolins, you mentioned, civets. Pangolins are rarely seen because they are protected species. So the Chinese government banned the selling of pangolins are rarely seen because they are protected, you know, species. So the Chinese

government, you know, banned the selling of pangolins for meat. But typically you see snakes, large number of snakes on these markets and the civic cats and other wildlife animals and typically in very, you know, compromised, you know, conditions, very dirty, very smelly. And all these animals, you know, mixed together, even though they're in separate cages, but they can feel each other. The droppings can fall on the animals in the cages. So it's not a place that people want to go there. Bioethicist Kerry Bowman once visited the now infamous seafood market in Wuhan, China. It was packed full of live and dead animals.

You've got urine and feces spraying from one enclosure to another, creating really an incubator for emerging viruses. We counted 56 different species. So a lot of these species, and probably almost two-thirds of them, were wild. Now, because of urbanization in China, these species and probably almost two-thirds of them were wild. you know, from freshly slaughtered animals, they would go to the wet market for livestock. But most of the people in China today goes to the Western supermarkets for frozen meat. I know that researchers believe that the coronavirus originated in bats. One study found that a coronavirus found in bats

shared 96% of its genetic material with the virus behind the current pandemic, known as SARS-CoV-2. So would there have been bats at this market as well? I don't think there were bats in Wuhan's market. But the thing is,

there could be another species in between the bats and the patients in Wuhan that passed the virus to humans. But we don't know which one yet. There are different speculations about snakes, about the pangolin, and possibly civic cats. But it is up to the scientists to make the final determination.

It is really not just the wild, you know, live wet marketing that has a problem. The transport, the hoarding situation, the, you know, breeding farms. And of course, they go to the wild to capture wild animals. So there are three pieces that animals have close contact with the people. Right. You're saying essentially it's the entire system. It's not necessarily just this one part of the market that could have been the source of this. You mentioned that people of older generations are probably using these wet markets more because they're more used to sort of getting their food maybe the day that they're going to eat it. I also heard an interview on NPR recently.

They were talking to an expert, someone who studies food security in China. Eating wild animals is considered a symbol of wealth because they are more rare and expensive. And wild animals is also considered more natural and thus nutritious compared to farmed meat. It's a belief in traditional Chinese medicine that it can boost the immune system. And is that accurate?

I can tell you one thing. We did a survey two years ago. We went into 200 Chinese families and we opened the refrigerator. We want to find out what people store in the refrigerator. So what is in the refrigerator reflects the Chinese food culture. We fail to find any frozen snake. We fail to find any frozen seabed cat.

What they had is very similar to what we have in our refrigerators in North America. So in China, we hear a lot about, oh, there is a demand for wildlife animal meat, right? There is demand for, you know, drugs with animal parts, wildlife animal parts. I would say the demand is not from the people, not from the consumers. The demand has been created by the traders, by the industry. I'll give you one example. In 2003, when the Chinese government shut down the wall of trade and the wall of consumption in Guangdong because of SARS, we have not heard anybody from the consumers

calling on the Chinese government to reopen the trade because we want to eat the wild animals. We have not read about anybody, any consumer wanting the government to reopen the trade. But we have read a lot of reports conducted by the farming industry calling on the government to reopen the trade because we want to reproduce these animals. Yeah. Can you tell me more about that? Like why are the traders and the pharmaceutical industry pressuring the government to reopen this trade? Because of commercial interest, because they're making money.

They frame the industry as being, you know, conservation friendly, as being good for, you know, public health because of traditional Chinese medicine and because of fighting poverty. But in actuality, these industries, they cannot care less about the culture, about tradition. They just care about the commercial interest and the profit. The entire, you know, narrative of the wildlife industry, so-called, oh, this is our culture, this is our tradition, this is good for medicine. That's all, you know, falsehood. But what are people buying? Because, you know, obviously there's money in this industry. What kind of things are people buying that is the product of these wild animals?

There are different dishes made of wild animals, made of a snake, for example. And different traditional Chinese medicine made of animal parts like a bear bile. Like bear bile? Bear bile, yes. The wildlife farming industry says, for example, pangolins are good for increasing your sex drive. And I would tell you this, young men will not care about it at all until they are in the mid-age when they need it,

when they're fighting, you know, erectile dysfunction. People will not go to buy these, you know, products or go buy this medicine. Chinese people are very pragmatic. They choose to believe something when they have to. But the industry is aggressively promoting these products. The benefits of these products that maybe aren't backed up by science. This actually reminds me quite a bit of the big wellness industry in North America. There are companies like Goop run by Gwyneth Paltrow that receives very similar criticisms to this. How much money are we talking about in China? How much money does this industry generate? The industry has five components. The biggest part is for animal farming,

which produces in 2016 a total revenue of 77 billion US dollars. It's huge. Now, that's the biggest one. The second piece is breeding for the exotic food market. And that produced a revenue in 2016 of 21 billion US dollars. Okay, so we're talking about $100 billion all in here. $125 billion, yes, which is impacted right now, yes. What role is China's government playing in all of this? The Chinese government has been, you know, associated with wildlife farming from day one, which was when the industry got started in the early 1980s. Now, at that time, you know, China had just emerged out of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution,

and the new leaders wanted to, you know, improve the livelihood of the Chinese people, especially the peasants. So they allowed and encouraged the Chinese peasants to start their own, you know, productive, you know, activities. A small number of those peasants started to operate wildlife-related businesses. People who are involved in the business,

if you look at China's entire country, which is a 900 million, you know, labor force, 40 million people working in the industry, it's really not a big deal. Do these people have a lot of power in the government? You know, the government also gives the industry a lot of influence. So the industry has been telling the government, we are doing wildlife farming, which helps your political objective, which is fighting poverty and, you know, achieve, you know, economic development. So even though it's a relatively small group compared to the population of China,

essentially what you're saying here is that there is an oversized influence. You know, this is an industry with like a loud voice. Yes, very loud voice. And also they have a strong ally in the Chinese government, which is the State Forestry and the Grassland Bureau. Now, this State Forestry Bureau is in charge of China's wildlife protection and in charge of wildlife management. wildlife protection and in charge of wildlife management. So all these hundreds of thousands of wildlife breeders are under the management of the State Forest Bureau. Okay, okay. So there also is this government bureau that plays a role in this as well. That's interesting.

Yes. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. After, you know, we mentioned before that the SARS epidemic also started in the Chinese wet market. And now COVID-19 is believed to have started in the Chinese wet market. Many officials around the world are asking for the wildlife markets in China to be shut

down, among them lawmakers in the U.S. Let's bring in South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Well, I'm going to write a letter to the World Health Organization and to the Chinese ambassador asking them to close the Chinese wet markets. The United Nations acting head of biodiversity, the U.S. government's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. It boggles my mind how when we have so many diseases that emanate out of that unusual human-animal interface, that we don't just shut it down. I don't know what else has to happen. What would a blanket ban look like? And do you agree that it's the right thing to do? Yes, it is absolutely necessary for China to shut down the wildlife wet market. But besides that,

shut down wildlife transport, shut down wildlife breeding, and also China should take an additional step to shut down the regular wet market where, you know, livestock, the dogs and the cats are also slaughtered for food. And those are also a potential, you know, risk for, you know, a pandemic to happen. There are some experts who say that even though bans appear to be a logical solution, they could also do more harm than good here, right? Because they could basically push this underground. So, you know, this ability that the government might have to regulate these markets could go away. They're, you know, you don't have the opportunity of shining sunlight on this, right? Like, it could be this trade could be controlled by organized crime. And so what's your response to that?

You know, there will always be violators to any, you know, laws. But once you outlaw this line of production or this activity, it is easier for law enforcement to go after the violators or lawbreakers than to ensure compliance. Because if you allow wildlife trade to continue, say wildlife consumption continue, the traders have to be in compliance with at least 20 different laws and regulations in China. So it is very hard to ensure that the industry complies with every one of them. So it's the safety of the 1.4 billion people. It's more important than the food safety of the industry that, you know, caters to the exotic, you know, taste of small number of people.

Another question I have is that wet markets are not exclusive to China, right? Like in Mexico, they have the world's second largest seafood wet market. There are wet markets in Thailand and other places in Southeast Asia. So should they face the same type of scrutiny and potential bans? Exactly. You know, China has the world's biggest wildlife consumption and right of trade. But, you know, the same kind of business, you know, continues or exists in other countries in a much smaller scale. But, you know, that does not say those markets are not risky, are not dangerous. So we know that in India, there is a bushmeat trade. Monkeys are slaughtered for, you know, meat. In Indonesia, you know, bats are sold and slaughtered for food,

and also in Central Africa. So wherever wildlife trade exists, wherever wildlife animals have been brought into close contact with people, that activity must be stopped. Okay, so this idea that this blanket ban on wet markets, we know that after the SARS outbreak, China temporarily banned wet markets, but they reopened them after a few months. As we mentioned in this conversation, civets, which are kind of like, I don't know, weasley cats, were allowed back at these markets so long as they were farmed. But now, in response to COVID-19, China has banned these types of markets again. It's unclear for how

long. The World Health Organization acknowledges that wet markets are an important source of affordable food and livelihood for millions of people, but saying that in many places they've been poorly regulated and poorly maintained. WHO's position is that when these markets are allowed to reopen, it should only be on the condition that they conform to stringent food safety and hygiene standards. Some are already reopening across the country, I understand. And conservation groups are already worried that the ban doesn't go far enough. For example, there's a loophole that allows for the use of wildlife

for traditional Chinese medicine, like the farming of bats and pangolins. Do you think that China is taking this seriously this time around? Yes, China has started to reopen markets. It's really not a wet market for wildlife. So that part, that wet market has still been shut down. What has been open is a wet market for livestock, like chicken, that part. So, yes, this time I would say it's more likely that the government is going to do something more drastic. We see, you know, bigger determination by the Chinese government.

Even the National People's Congress, China's national legislature, issued a comprehensive ban. We didn't see that in 2002. issued a comprehensive ban. We didn't see that in 2002. And also this time, we have read about President Xi Jinping making public statements, and he said very emphatically, we cannot allow wildlife consumption and wildlife trade to continue as it is. Also, we see considerable pressure applied on the government from the Chinese society. Okay, the people are also calling for this. The people, yes, exactly. How difficult would it be for China to shut down these wet markets, the ones that trade in wildlife, and then I suppose if China decided to go a step further and also ban livestock wet markets?

Realistically, I would say that it takes a phased approach. So I would give the Chinese government the benefit of the doubt that if we cannot do all at a time, then that would be OK. But it has to shut down the wildlife market and wildlife consumption. Is it possible to achieve that? And I think it's very possible. We know that China has an authoritarian state. If it really wants to do something, it can accomplish a miracle. Wildlife industry in China is a job in the bucket. It's very small. If the Chinese government is determined to do it in the

interest of the safety of 1.4 billion Chinese people, and of course, in the interest of the safety of 7.8 billion people in the world, the Chinese government can accomplish that. Professor Li, thank you so much for this conversation. Good to be here. All right, so before we go today, some big news out of Nova Scotia. This is a story that we are following very closely and are going to keep you posted on. Nova Scotia is reeling after a mass shooting unfolded across the province over the weekend. At least 17 people were killed in multiple locations. A gunman went on a 12-hour rampage that began in the small community of Portapique and ended

north of Halifax. Among the dead are the suspect and an RCMP officer. Constable Heidi Stevenson was a 23-year veteran of the police force. She was identified as the police member who was killed responding to the incident. The RCMP warned there may be more victims who have not been discovered yet as their investigation continues. They said that the suspect's name is Gabriel Wartman, 51 years old. Nova Scotia's Premier Stephen McNeill described it as, quote, one of the most senseless acts of violence in the province's history. Our thoughts are with the people of Nova Scotia right now. And again, we're going to keep on top of this story. That's all for today, though.

Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and talk to you soon. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.