China’s state broadcaster used its annual 3·15 consumer-rights gala to mount a sweeping critique of commercial malpractice across food safety, medical marketing, mobility and the nascent generative-AI economy. The programme named firms and exposed supply chains that turned raw materials and questionable services into polished products for consumers, while regulators and platform operators scrambled to contain reputational and legal fallout.
At the centre of the broadcast was a vivid exposé of a bleached chicken feet industry in Sichuan and Chongqing. Reporters documented filthy processing rooms and described workers handling piles of poultry in stagnant water; the finished product, nevertheless, appeared strikingly white. Investigators traced the whiteness to hydrogen peroxide bleaching — a practice prohibited under China’s GB 2760 food‑additive standard — and named suppliers and processors, including a chemicals firm that has since been folded into a listed fluorochemical group.
The chemical connection is notable because it highlights gaps in corporate governance and regulatory oversight. One supplier implicated in selling hydrogen peroxide had been acquired last year by a prominent fluorochemicals and semiconductor‑materials company; the acquired unit had been included in the buyer’s consolidated accounts for more than a year. Public records also show the supplier recently renewed a licence to produce stronger hydrogen peroxide solutions, raising questions about how hazardous chemicals enter food‑processing supply chains.
The broadcast also took aim at the booming but poorly regulated market for so‑called exosome products, marketed online as miraculous anti‑ageing and therapeutic agents. Exosomes are biologically active particles secreted in cell cultures and remain primarily an area of biomedical research; China has not approved any therapeutic exosome drugs. Nonetheless, clinics and cosmetic chains have injected these products into paying customers, sometimes by “borrowing” medical licences, with multiple complaints of infections and allergic reactions reported.
Another strand of the show targeted the business model behind private‑domain marketing and “paid experts”. Journalists infiltrated industry gatherings where video producers, social‑media shops and private‑domain marketers explained how to package cheap supplements and off‑label pharmaceuticals with paid‑for academic titles and flattering video content. The spectacle revealed how low‑cost procurement, theatrical endorsement and high‑pressure sales funnels conspire to extract large margins from unsuspecting consumers.
Mobility surfaced as a third major concern. Reporters rented rental e‑bikes that reached speeds as high as 75–80 km/h, far above China’s new national standard limiting design speeds to 25 km/h. Investigators found a market workaround in which vendors use pre‑existing certificates, buy licence plates, or distribute electric motorcycles disguised under bicycle registrations — practices that put riders at risk and challenge regulators trying to enforce harmonised safety rules. A well‑known rental operator named in the programme said it had launched a compliance and remediation plan.
Perhaps the most consequential revelation for a global audience was an account of an emerging grey market that deliberately “poisons” AI models. Service providers offering Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) promise clients that a flood of tailored content can bias domestic AI large‑language and multimodal models to prefer a client’s product or response. The practice rests on automated posting, mass‑produced soft copy and coordinated indexing; it threatens the integrity of AI outputs and risks turning generative models into new vectors for deception and disinformation.
The 3·15 show closed with reports on financial scams such as “recommend‑stock profit‑sharing” services, which masquerade as licensed advisory firms while charging finder’s fees and disappearing when investments fall. Journalists described unlicensed operators who recruit phone sales staff and steer customers into owner‑selected stocks under the promise of shared profits, a classic asymmetric‑risk scam. Together, these cases paint a picture of a market where technological change, fragmented oversight and commercial opportunism amplify harm.
For foreign companies and investors the broadcast is a reminder that China’s regulatory state can wield high‑profile enforcement as both consumer protection and industrial governance. Firms named on the programme face immediate reputational, legal and commercial consequences in China’s highly public enforcement ecosystem. Meanwhile the GEO revelations foreshadow a new policy priority: governments and platforms will need clearer standards for training data governance, provenance and remedying model manipulation if generative AI is to be trusted at scale.