Posted: December 21st, 2010 - 12:00pm by Doug Powell

While the political boffins in Washington continue their crawling to some sort of food safety legislation, the Chinese have come up with their own legislative push: public servants responsible for supervising and managing food safety will face up to ten years in jail for dereliction of duty or abuse of power in the case of a severe food safety incident.

Xinhua News Agency reports that according to the Commission for Legislative Affairs of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), the new item will protect people's livelehood.

The draft also broadens the conditions for food safety crimes. It says those who produce and sell a harmful food product will be punished even if poisonings fail to occur.

The draft was submitted Monday to the NPC Standing Committee, China's top legislature, at its bimonthly session for review. The session started Monday and will run until Saturday.