Did China ban eating dogs

Yulin Dog Meat Festival: What is it, how did it start and will activists ever manage to get it banned?

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

The Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat festival is an annual 10 day event where over 10,000 dogs are eaten. Cat meat, fresh lychees and liquor are also available at the festival.

The event in this remote part of southern China has proved to be very controversial in recent years, particularly in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

When and where does it take place?

It takes place in Yulin, a city in the Guangxi province of China, and runs from the 21 to 30 June during one of the hottest weeks of the year.

How did it start?

The first festival took place in 2009 to mark the summer solstice. Dog eating is traditional in China, and according to folklore eating the meat during the summer months brings luck and good health. Some also believe dog meat can ward off diseases and heighten mens sexual performance.

What is the controversy surrounding it?

The festival has attracted widespread negative coverage within China and internationally. Activists have reported that animals are slaughtered inhumanely using clubs in public and that hygiene practices at the festival do not fall in line with Chinese regulations. There are also complaints that dogs are brought to Yulin from across China in cramped conditions, and festival visitors have reported seeing some animals with collars, indicating they are stolen pets.

The World Health Organisation has warned that the dog trade spreads rabies and increases the risk of cholera.

Is it seen differently in China?

Eating dogs is not illegal in China. Around 10 to 20 million are killed for human consumption every year and although the festival is new the custom can be traced back at least 400 years. But attitudes are changing. Keeping dogs as pets was banned during the Cultural Revolution, but dog ownership has become popular among Chinas growing middle-class; there are now 62 million registered as pets. Animal activists, celebrities and younger Chinese citizens have been increasingly vocal on social media about opposing dog eating festivals and the practice in general.

Will activists get their wish and see it stopped?

The Yulin Municipal Government has repeatedly said that it is not able to stop the festival as it claims it does not exist as an official event.But a 2017 survey revealed that in Yulin, nearly three-quarters of people dont regularly eat dog meat despite efforts by traders to promote it. A 2016 nationwide survey found that 64 per cent of Chinese citizens wanted the Yulin festival shut down and 69.5 per cent have never eaten dog meat.

Will Yulin follow Shenzhen and Zhuhai and ban the consumption of dog meat?

Lat month, Chinas government has called dogs companions and reportedly signalled a wider ban on dog meat consumption was ahead.

Dr Peter Li, HSIs China policy specialist, said that the Yulin festival was a bloody spectacle [which] does not reflect the mood or eating habits of the majority of the Chinese people.

He said: Now that the Chinese government has officially recognised dogs as companions and not livestock, we are hopeful that China will take stronger steps to hasten the end of the dog and cat meat trade for which millions of animals continue to suffer every year.

The announcement presents cities across China with the perfect opportunity to act upon the governments words by protecting dogs and cats from the meat trade thieves and slaughterhouses.

Chinas ministry of agriculture noted that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisations livestock list does not include dogs and said that internationally, dogs are not treated as livestock.

In April, the cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai, were the first in China to officially ban the consumption of cat and dog meat.

The coronavirus outbreak started in Wuhan, China late last year. Covid-19 is thought to have originated in horseshoe bats and passed to humans via an intermediary species.

In response to the outbreak, China issued a temporary ban on all trade and consumption of wild animals and is considering revising legislation to make the ban permanent.

In Fight to Ban Dog Meat, Chinas Activists Find an Ally: The Coronavirus

For years, animal rights activists in China have lobbied policymakers, organized education drives and staged protests to persuade the government and the public to support banning the eating of dogs and cats. They scored few concrete wins.

The coronavirus, which spread from a food market in China, changed everything.

After the national government suspended the sale of wildlife in February, the southern Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai became the first in the country to ban the consumption of cats and dogs. Last month, the Ministry of Agriculture, in a major step, removed dogs from its list of approved domesticated livestock, referring to dogs for the first time as companion animals.

Even in the southern Chinese city of Yulin, a dog meat festival that has long courted controversy opened on Sunday to less fanfare than in past years, as fears of the virus kept revelers away.

We have been working on this issue for years, but the government kept passing the buck, said Cynthia Zhang, a Guangzhou-based animal rights activist. So we are using the epidemic as an opportunity to try to push through as much legislation as possible.

Its long-fought validation for a loose but fast growing network of local animal rights activists.

While Chinas practice of eating dog meat has received global attention from celebrities including the British comedian Ricky Gervais and the American reality television star Lisa Vanderpump, an often overlooked group of animal activists and pet lovers has been the on-the-ground force for change in communities and cities across the country. They have succeeded despite growing pushback from nationalistic critics who say that eating dog meat is a Chinese tradition, no different than the American love of turkey.

The animal activists have managed to carve out a space for their work in a country where advocacy and dissent have rapidly shriveled under Chinas leader Xi Jinping. While human rights lawyers and womens rights activists are regularly targeted by the Communist Party, animal protection is seen as a relatively fringe issue and less menacing to the party giving activists more room to maneuver.

Over the years, they have petitioned lawmakers and set up animal shelters. Some of the more zealous players have intercepted trucks carrying dogs for slaughter and lobbied on the steps of government agencies. At least a few hundred formal and informal groups across the country are estimated to be working on animal protection issues.

It remains to be seen how the new guidelines will be enforced. China still lacks national laws banning animal cruelty and the consumption of dogs and cats all of which activists say are crucial to fully eliminating the practice.

But their efforts have received tacit backing from the fast-growing number of pet owners in China, drawn mostly from the countrys booming middle class. One recent survey conducted by local animal associations found that there were 55 million pet dogs in China last year, up 8 percent from the year before. As their legions have grown, so too has support for banning dog meat consumption.

The younger generation of Chinese is more international, they have more universal values, said Qin Xiaona, founder of Beijings Capital Animal Welfare Association. The officials are getting younger, too.

One activist, Qi Qi, 37, started pressing the issue in 2014 when she answered a call for help on social media from volunteers who had intercepted a truck with hundreds of dogs on the outskirts of Beijing. Over two days, Ms. Qi helped care for the dogs as the volunteers negotiated with police and the driver to hand over the animals. Ms. Qi went on to participate in about 20 truck rescues, though not all were as successful.

Recently, Ms. Qi and her husband have shifted their focus to raising awareness. The couple recently opened a cafe in a trendy Beijing shopping mall where they host talks about animal protection and donate a portion of their proceeds to local trap-neuter-release efforts. Earlier this month, when a truck full of dogs was intercepted in northeastern China, Ms. Qi stood with a group of volunteers outside the Ministry of Agriculture every day for a week to urge officials to intervene by putting pressure on local authorities to release the dogs.

We dont say its to protect dogs, but rather to enforce the law and safeguard public health, said Ms. Qi. In China, if you say you are doing this because you are a dog lover, a lot of people will be turned off, so we try to circle around it.

Ms. Zhang, the Guangzhou-based activist, said that for years, she and a group of volunteers had taken a more combative stance, staging protests at local government offices and going head-to-head with dog meat vendors.

The space for doing our work has shrunk, Ms. Zhang said. She noted that authorities had shut down several active animal protection group discussions on the popular social messaging app WeChat after some members had criticized the government.

There is still room to get our message out there, she said. As long as you dont criticize the government.

Several years ago, Ms. Zhang said, they changed tactics to take a more positive approach, focusing their efforts on reaching out to national policymakers instead.

Ms. Zhang figures that her group has sent out thousands of letters to delegates to Chinas top legislative bodies in recent years informing them about the dismal conditions of the dog meat trade, which is largely unregulated in China. Since there are few legal dog farms in China, activists say that most of the countrys dog meat comes from captured strays or stolen pets.

In 2015, Ms. Zhang said she and her colleagues were able to convince one delegate, a vegetarian, to propose a bill to ban the slaughter and consumption of cats and dogs at the annual gathering of Chinas top lawmaking body. The proposal sparked a national conversation, and more lawmakers began to show interest.

But it wasnt until the unexpected emergence of the coronavirus earlier this year and the renewed scrutiny over the wildlife trade in China that some of the policies long under discussion gained traction.

China has been in a civil war between animal lovers and people who support dog meat consumption, and the animal lovers are gaining the upper hand, said Peter J. Li, a China policy adviser with Humane Society International. The Chinese government sees this.

Persuading the public can still be an uphill battle.

The practice of eating dog meat is limited to a few areas of China and most people do not eat it regularly. Instead, defenders often subscribe to a belief that while I may not eat dog meat, I support your right to do so.

Xu Zhe, 22, a recent college graduate from the northeastern city of Dalian, said he eats dog meat once a year during the Chinese New Year and had no qualms about it even though he grew up with a dog at home.

I have a deep connection with my dog, but not with the dog Im eating, Mr. Xu said.

The recent rise of nationalism in China has further fueled defenders of the practice. Some say that banning dog meat is a rejection of a longstanding Chinese tradition.

Zhao Nanyuan, a retired Tsinghua professor and longtime proponent of eating dogs, accuses animal rights activists of being manipulated by the West.

Those who make trouble at the dog meat festival are being supported by foreign black hands, Mr. Zhao said in an email. To elevate the status of animals is to degrade the status of people, thus violating the principles of humanism.

The environment, though, is improving, even in the home of the Yulin Lychee and Dog Meat Festival.

While activists say many locals still eat dog meat, local officials, facing domestic and international pressure, have distanced themselves from the festival in recent years. Activists on the ground said that the atmosphere was noticeably quieter compared to past years, with far fewer visitors.

Most of the dog meat stalls and vendors had moved to the outskirts of the city. A recent government crackdown had also made it difficult for traders to transport dogs from outside the province.

There have been longer-term changes in the city as well. In recent years, the city has seen an influx of younger, middle-class Chinese who are less defensive than the older generation about the local dog meat eating tradition. Grooming shops and pet clinics have begun to pop up alongside new wine bars and steak restaurants.

Peoples lives have improved, said Tang Laixi, who opened a two-story pet-themed restaurant and grooming business in Yulin in 2017. Since last year, Mr. Tang said he had noticed an increase in the number of pet dogs particularly poodles, golden retrievers and Border collies in the city.

Having a pet keeps you in a good mood, he said.

Bella Huang contributed reporting.