Nah, the psychological principle is rather the one that deal with that people are typically unwilling to help those in need for fear of being punished or by simply not caring enough. It's an established theory which states that we're essentially too uncaring or afraid to take action.

I disagree that the degradation of morals are more present in the Chinese society rather than that of the West. Sensational stories like these are publicized greatly and there's so much flak that comes from these stories.

What about all of those mothers that abandon their children in dumpsters and the child dies because no one wanted to do anything about it? What about the rapes that happened in Chicago/New York City in the middle of a group of apartments while neighbors watched? What about when a gang murders citizens in broad daylight and no one wants to speak up in fear of retribution? How about when a Fraternity hazes it's pledges through vicious beatings, forced alcohol consumption, and sexual abuse? These events are common in American society... and is equally as bad as these events.

I'm more disturbed by the degradation of our current morals today. Incidents like these aren't common so far, but you just have to turn on the news now to hear about the degradation of Western morals. What society has the ability to have large amounts of murders? Brutal stabbings, torture, and other such events? There's so many equal and worse events happening in America.

We need to take a step back and examine ourselves before we can criticize others?

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To use the example of the melamine poisoning food in China as an example of degradation of morals, one needs to take a step back in history and look at past events.

Most economists and politicians will argue that China is going through an advanced Industrial Revolution era in an effort to catch up to the world's superpowers. As turn, they are going through what the US & England went through in the early to mid 20th Century.

While this may be bad, the United States and England both experienced such "food poisoning" events in their past. If you read about Adam Sinclair's The Jungle, you can see how the food industry in the USA was contaminated and how many people would get sick off of the food produced. England has similar problems with their food industry as well. This is also not to say that these problems don't exist in our society today... because they still do.

Moreover, if you want to use the argument that the lack of regard to safety is related to a degradation of morals, then point fingers at Western society. Not only do Western companies outsource their work to facilities that they know cut corners in order to save money, they themselves also produce and release products that have inherent design flaws and will cause injuries and death in our society today.

You can see the multitude of problems with the recalls that many American companies have to issue, most predominantly through car companies.

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The problem with the degradation of morals is not more present in China. I believe that a stronger argument would be the fact that our current global economy is having such a large effect upon those with lesser morals in all society. You're describing a human morality problem that cannot be attributed to a specific society. It applies to everyone.