By Bunn Nagara

CHINA'S rise is still centred on its economy, with everything else including its global reputation perceived, relative and neither inevitable nor assured.

When Yasuo Fukuda became Japan's prime minister last year, it was a plus for China after a string of prickly nationalist leaders. Fukuda was Japan's most China-friendly premier in decades, whose father former premier Takeo Fukuda founded the Asia-friendly Fukuda Doctrine.

In Taiwan, the Kuomintang's Ma Ying-jeou became president last May. With a focus on eventual reunification rather than talk of independence as in eight years of Chen Shui-bian, Ma's ascendancy marked another plus for Beijing.

Then last August's Beijing Olympics capped the rise of modern China in multiple ways. But the Games lasted less than a full month, and everything else after that seems like an anti-climax for Beijing.

China was accused of using underage female gymnasts even as the Games proceeded. Until now a final verdict has yet to be reached, despite China's top medal and gold-medal hauls.

Then early last month Fukuda resigned after serving only 12 months. His successor Taro Aso is a loose cannon insensitive to Japan's Asian neighbours such as China.

Fukuda did little to improve relations with China in his brief tenure, besides ending prime ministerial visits to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. His decision could easily be reversed by any number of successors.

The hope now for China is that Ma will do much more to improve cross-straits relations. But since his focus is on the economy, upgrading ties with the mainland is at best a work in progress. Meanwhile, problems with contaminated pet food returned with a vengeance, blowing up in Beijing's face with hazardous fallout in Taiwan and Japan. Contaminated baby milk powder, discovered only last month, has so far killed four babies and sickened more than 50,000 others.

Pet food contamination was found in March last year when melamine as "protein falsifier" was added to food for cats and dogs. This was besides the rat poison aminopterin also found in pet food.

Today's controversy over contaminated milk enlarges the earlier problem. When the lives of infants are sacrificed by the unscrupulous in indecent, immoral and unlawful profiteering, the problem is clearly larger than is acknowledged.

Even China's leading dairy companies are implicated: Mengniu Dairy Group Co, Yili Industrial Group Co, Sanlu Group Co and Bright Dairy. Thus leading Western companies like Cadbury and Starbucks using Chinese dairy ingredients have had to suspend their China supplies.

Necessary action by Chinese officials has seemed slow and limited. As in the first stages of SARS in early 2003, the official response has initially been denial or damage control, PR and measured remedial action. This week CNN reported that Chinese lawyers volunteering to represent parents of stricken children had been warned off by officials.

Some dairy executives have been arrested, but the Chinese government still suffers from an image problem.

How can a country that had successfully staged a dazzling Olympics, the most spectacular ever seen, also produce poisoned baby food? Answer: the Olympics is not only a staged show, but also for only a brief period and required no sustained best practices.

Even more inevitable than China's entry as a major player in the global marketplace is that players must observe some minimum safety standards. International trade is more important than any player in it, however significant and promising, with the health of this trade pivoting on the health of consumers.

Neglect that, and even China's first space walk will become more of a spectacle than a sustained technological achievement. With no short-cut to global ascendancy, will China have to learn that the hard way?