Sleep is light for Chinese parents with infants today, as they dwell on the gnawing possibility that they may have exposed their child to contaminated milk. Parents have swarmed the hospitals in mainland China and Hong Kong in the past few weeks, lining up to have their babies checked, following the terrifying news of the deaths of four infants.

Consumers here woke up Wednesday to find that we are also affected ? a number of favourite snacks, including the iconic traditional White Rabbit candy, are being withdrawn from the market, to allow for investigation as to whether any products containing dairy-based ingredients from China have been contaminated.

Reports say that dairy farmers or middlemen used melamine, a chemical used to make plastics, to illegally spike the protein content in milk, to make more profit. The Indonesian food and beverage association representative has said that dairy-based products with ingredients from China make up only a tiny percentage of the local market, yet we are relieved nevertheless that action has been taken before anyone here is harmed.

Old suspicions of state-centralized governments are proving justified ? that the information was not entirely new to the Chinese government.

The scandal is yet another following the earlier reports of pets dying in the United States, blamed on con-taminated pet food from China.

There was also the case of the withdrawal of Chinese-made lead-paint-tainted toys.

Another incident which comes to mind is the earthquake this May in Sichuan province, when children were among the 50,000 killed, many of them in their classrooms. Instead of answering questions on why some school buildings were so badly built compared to neighbouring buildings which survived the quake, reports revealed intimidation against mourning parents who continued to pester the authorities on these unresolved questions ? coincidentally, it seemed, ahead of the Olympic Games.

The recently concluded Games have won huge world respect and admiration for China ? which will not diminish regarding its organisation and hosting of the event, the achievement of its athletes and the display of pride of a billion people.

But one must be forgiven for wondering whether the Games were one factor leading to suppression of crucial information on tainted milk.

Only now we have reports that in July the Gansu provincial administration had already reported an increase of infants with kidney stones to the Health Ministry. New Zealand, whose company Fonterra has shares in the Chinese Sanlu brand, had prodded China for a public recall of the milk powder, since Sanlu reported problems with the product in early August.

Now governments across the region are on the look out for food and beverage products including ingredients from China.

This is not to say that we have much better quality control in the production and distribution of food. Reports abound of the unthinkable ? that in this day and age consumers have picked up rotten meat in their modern stores, that scavengers have been selling ?recycled? beef from restaurant and hotel leftovers. And come Idul Fitri, the government will warn us again about checking the food packages we send or receive, in case of outdated products. And we?re still nervous on whether our daily fare of tofu, for instance, contains formaldehyde.

But the Chinese government still faces questions from its billion citizens as well as consumers worldwide. Its officials may continue to repeat how they value quality control ? but the parents of the dead infants and the thousands affected by sickness might likewise reiterate that they had no information beforehand, that might have saved their sons and daughters.

Those inside and outside China who condemned the protests on Tibet ahead of the Games said one should not mix politics and sports.

But as citizens with experience under authoritarian rule, we grew up knowing that political interest in maintaining unchecked power went together quite well with a policy of restricting access to information, however vital that information might be to the public wellbeing.