????過去五周，在華經營的美國快餐企業如坐針氈。

????上周五，丑聞風波掀起了一個新高潮：上海檢察機關批捕麥當勞（McDonalds’）最大的肉類食品供應商福喜集團（OSI Group）中國子公司的6位雇員，罪由是他們向麥當勞、肯德基（KFC）和其他在華連鎖快餐企業銷售過期肉。

????7月底，上海一家電視臺曝光上海福喜食品有限公司（Shanghai Husi Food）給過期肉篡改包裝生產日期，并使用過期牛肉生產肉餅。之后麥當勞在華餐廳連續3周面臨牛肉和雞肉產品短缺的窘境，中國所在地區的銷售額在7月份下跌7%。一時之間，人們在北京都買不到巨無霸了。

????8月初，也就是過期肉事件曝光兩周半后，我碰巧遇到了兩位來北京出差的福喜集團員工，他們正在對集團旗下中國各地工廠展開緊急檢查工作。其中一位員工來自福喜芝加哥地區總部；另一位曾在華中的一家工廠工作過。

????這里面有一位是我大學時期的同窗好友，我不會在此透露他們的姓名。但我們詳細地探討了此次危機。對于為什么會出此紕漏，他們的解釋是，作為一家美國公司，福喜集團不知道中國本地經理人在做些什么，有時候也沒法搞清楚。中國本地工廠的文件和條例不會從中文翻譯成英文，即便翻譯了，福喜的美國經理人也不會經常瀏覽。

????這家公司正在努力解決這些問題，但最近它的中國業務陷入停滯，每天虧損達數百萬美元。

????在這起最新的中國食品安全丑聞中，媒體報道分為兩派。一派認為，從福喜獲得原料供應的麥當勞、肯德基、星巴克（Starbucks）和其他美國餐飲公司是中國掀起打擊外資公司風潮下的犧牲品，而此類行動從1年半前中國媒體批評星巴克咖啡定價就開始了。這是為美國品牌辯護的西方人喜歡的論調。

????另一派以中國媒體為主，它們認為，洋快餐在中國大失水準，福喜存在與眾多中國本土食品公司一樣的食品質量和安全問題。

????與福喜的兩位高管談了一晚之后，有一點很清楚了——中國媒體是對的。福喜有時對于其在中國的經營狀況確實一無所知，可能確實存在被指控的問題，但他們對需要做出的改變持開放態度。

????It’s been a wretched five weeks forAmerican fast food in China.

????The humiliation reached a new pitch Friday when prosecutors in Shanghai arrested six employees of the Chinese subsidiary of McDonalds’s largest meat supplier, OSI Group, for selling expired meat to McDonald’s, KFC, and other chains in the country.

????The OSI subsidiary, Shanghai Husi Food, was caught by a Shanghai TV channel in late July re-labelling expired meat packages and using expired beef to make patties. McDonald’s was short on beef and chicken for three weeks in China following the ordeal. Sales in the region that includes China plummeted 7% in July. For a while, you couldn’t order a Big Mac in Beijing.

????Two and a half weeks after the news broke, in early August, I happened to meet employees from OSI who were in Beijing for emergency visits to the company’s plants around the country. One had come from the Chicago-area headquarters; the other worked at a plant in central China.

????I met one as a friend from college, so I won’t use their names. But we talked at length about the crises. Their explanation of what went wrong is the story of a U.S. company that didn’t know what local Chinese managers were doing—and in some cases, couldn’t figure out. Local plant documents and rules weren’t translated from Chinese into English, and even if they had been, OSI’s American managers didn’t often visit.

????OSI is working to fix the problems, but most recently its China business was at a standstill, losing millions of dollars a day in revenue.

????Media reports followed two narratives in the latest China food safety scandal. The first was that McDonald’s, KFC, Starbucks, and the rest of the U.S. restaurants getting supplies from OSI were victims of China’s crackdown on foreign companies—a trend over the past year and a half starting when Starbucks was criticized by Chinese media for the price of its coffee. This was the argument favored by Westerners defending American brands.

????The second, offered mostly by Chinese media, argued that foreign fast food had gotten sloppy in China, and that OSI was guilty of the same food quality and food safety issues plaguing China’s domestic food companies.

????After a night with the two OSI executives, it was clear the Chinese media were right—OSI was sometimes clueless about its operations in China, probably guilty as charged, and pretty open about needing to change.