Eating dog meat is a matter of choice

Despite animal rights organizations' strong opposition, the annual dog meat festival will be held by restaurants in Yulin, South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on June 21 this year. Thus we can expect the annual war of words between dog lovers and dog-meat lovers to intensify. Dog lovers say dog-meat lovers are very cruel and uncivilized while the latter say the former are uncivilized, for they lack respect for others' food habits.

In fact, society seems to be divided between dog lovers and dog-meat lovers. But a common enemy could unite them, and that enemy is the illegal dog meat trade chain.

Data show that more than 10,000 dogs are slaughtered every year at the Yulin Dog Meat Festival, but only less than 10 local companies raise dogs for slaughter and none of them more than 100 each. So where do the 9,000 of the dogs slaughtered in Yulin come from?