As far as scandals go, the recent revelation that 2 million doses of expired or spoiled vaccines with a value of 570 million yuan ($88 million) had been sold in 24 Chinese provinces since 2011 can easily qualify as one of the most shocking, even in a scandal-plagued country. According to official media, Chinese authorities have so far arrested more than 130 individuals suspected of participation in the vaccines sales and distribution ring. In addition, 29 companies, including three publicly-traded ones, were involved in the purchase and sale of the suspect vaccines that were supposed to provide protection against 25 diseases including meningitis, chicken pox, polio and rabies.

Certain aspects of this scandal stand out. For instance, the ringleader, a retired pharmacologist, was convicted of illegally selling vaccines as early as 2009 and, during her probation, restarted her illegal business with her daughter. Another noteworthy feature of their crime is that the pair were able to obtain large quantities of vaccines, which supposedly can only be bought and sold by licensed companies, not by individuals. Finally, even more disturbing than the crime itself is the long delay by Chinese authorities in informing the public of the danger posed by expired or spoiled vaccines distributed by the ring (according to Chinese press reports, the ringleader and her daughter were arrested in in early 2015).

However, the saga also bears important similarities with many other mega-scandals involving food and public safety in China over the past 15 years. In 2006, counterfeit drugs that had been approved by China's drug regulator were responsible for the deaths of an unknown number of people. In 2008, melamine-laced baby formula killed four babies and made nearly 40,000 more seriously ill.

Also in 2008, thousands of students perished when their poorly constructed school buildings collapsed during the Sichuan earthquake. In 2012, "gutter oil" (recycled cooking oil) caused a public panic about food safety. In 2013, the Chinese press began to report the wide use of overstretched, or weak, steel rods in buildings. Then in 2015, China was shaken by twin public safety disasters which resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people: the catastrophic Tianjin chemical explosion and the Shenzhen landslide.

Slow reactions

When examined closely, the vaccine scandal, along with the other instances of public health or safety lapses, reveals the systematic failure of Chinese regulation. Of course, it is natural for an outraged public to blame such disasters on individual greed. But the high frequency, long duration, and wide geographical reach of these incidents suggest the structural failure of regulatory agencies.

In this particular instance, the tainted vaccines were sold in 24 provinces (out of 31 on the mainland). In the 2008 scandal, melamine-fortified baby formulas were manufactured and sold by dozens of companies throughout China. As for "gutter oil," one coordinated crackdown in March 2012 alone led to the apprehension of individuals in six provinces who were trading the foul oil.

On top of this, reports of the sale of expired vaccines first began to appear in a leading Chinese publication, Caixin, as far back as 2013. Similarly, news media began to report unsafe baby formulas and "gutter oil" long before there was an official crackdown.

Invariably, after these scandals came to light, Chinese officials would admit their regulatory system was at fault. Some of the explanations seem reasonable. For instance, officials often cite the immense size of the country, fragmentation of the market (with very large numbers of manufacturers, vendors and distributors), and inadequate funding and staffing shortages in regulatory agencies.

In the case of the Chinese agencies for disease control and prevention (which are in charge of regulating vaccines), they have fewer than 500 qualified professionals responsible for policing 5,000 manufacturers, 12,000 distributors and 400,000 retailers. In 2012, the Chinese state provided only 64% of their funding, forcing the regulators to seek the rest through various fees and revenues -- a practice rife with conflicts of interest and corruption.

Yet, such excuses are unconvincing. China is definitely not short of the necessary financial resources to make its regulatory agencies effective. After all, this is a country that hosted the most expensive Olympics in history in 2008, staged lavish military parades, and spent 836 billion yuan on its domestic security in 2014. Clearly, underinvestment in regulatory enforcement reflects not economic constraints on the Chinese state, but the priorities of its ruling elites.

Skewed priorities

When one examines where China's rulers are willing to spend money, it is easy to find a consistent pattern: prestige projects that can bolster the appearance of a successful regime, or expenditure that protects the regime against popular revolt, typically get higher priorities than those benefiting ordinary people.Obviously, a spectacular Olympics would showcase China's arrival on the global stage under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party. It would therefore warrant tens of billions of dollars of spending, and, not coincidentally, the suppression of bad news that could mar the festivities (the news coverage of the tainted baby formula scandal was censored until the Olympics were over). Hiring informers, beefing up the secret police, and equipping the riot police with the most advanced tools may cost hundreds of billions of yuan, but for a regime obsessed with its survival, investing in its own security is a "no brainer."

To further understand how effective the Chinese Communist Party has been in enforcing regulations to safeguard public health and safety, and in defending its own political monopoly, we only need to make a casual comparison between how Beijing enforces food and drug safety -- very poorly -- and how it censors the press and the Internet -- with an efficiency unmatched anywhere in the world. If Chinese food and health regulators had the same resources and political incentives as the country's Internet censors and performed their duties with the same degree of dedication and care, it would be an easy bet that public health and safety would improve instantly and dramatically.

Another critical explanation for the low priority assigned to public health and safety by the CCP is that its ruling elites, especially those at the very top, live in a separate world of privilege and protection. Unsafe food, tainted pharmaceuticals and substandard buildings may be huge public hazards, but China's rulers have reliable access to safe food (which is specially grown), top-notch drugs (typically imported name brands), and special and reliable sturdy housing. As long as their own welfare is unaffected by these hazards, it is unlikely that they will pay sustained attention to improving China's wider public health and safety.

The final explanation one can offer is the suppression of press freedom. In most instances, the authorities have shown a tendency to keep the public from knowing the truth. Characteristically, they would prevent the press from exposing such scandals as long as possible and provide only scant information after the scandals become public knowledge. The costs of the lack of press freedom are incalculable. More lives would have been saved and fewer people would have been harmed had the press been given a green light to investigate and report on such scandals earlier. Public confidence would have been restored more quickly. The reality, of course, is the opposite.

This analysis shows that politics, not economics, is the key to improving China's regulatory effectiveness. Technically, Beijing should be able to make marginal improvements with increased funding and better training of its regulatory officials. But without addressing the most critical issues of the ruling elites' priorities and the freedom of the press, China is unlikely to make food and drugs safer for its people.

Minxin Pei is Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.