By the way, my friends in the know say many Beijing establishments -- at least in the expat-rich area of Chaoyang where I live, and where the 2008 Games will take place -- have run out of Guinness. While this isn't as serious a crisis as, say, running out of flu vaccine, it's causing  consternation and angst.

Rumor has it the Guinness imports are held up due to newly stringent government requirements for product-safety testing, using sophisticated gas chromatography which costs importers something in the neighborhood of five figures (in greenbacks, that is) and can take weeks or even months to complete. My last blog described the highly coincidental timing in which last week's important international food-safety conference in Beijing was preceded by a high-profile media visit -- pulled together by the city's Olympics organizers -- to a number of quality-control sites.

Included was a quality inspection site in Chaoyang with a display room showing various imported goods that've been tested for elements such as heavy metals. I saw some well-known labels there, including Revlon hair coloring, Del Monte ketchup, Ballantine's and Perrier.  Is the sudden dearth of Guinness related to Beijing's recent surge of interest in product safety inspections? If so, it means China and the EU are beginning to hit where it hurts in their tiff over quality control.