Live markets exist in China because there is low trust in the food supply. For many Chinese, they want to see the animal killed in front of them so they can make sure they're not getting ripped off.
Due to various policies, China is a relatively low-trust society. Of course, it's also low trust because ripping people off isn't necessarily seen as bad, it's seen as clever.
No, not even close to the same degree. If you told all your friends you sell ground beef at the farmers market but it was actually 50% beef 50% horse are they going to praise you for your cleverness or think you're an asshole?
That issue is why live markets exist cause no one there trusts the meat to be what what they say it is unless they can literally see it.
wildlife markets were an idea from Mao, because what else are you going to do when you have a population of hundreds of millions that are dying of starvation after colonial expansion and civil war?
But even if it had been intended as a stop gap, at this point its large industry. So if you wanted to "clean up" as in, "end" the wild meat market trade, you'd be ending a large, growing industry, that brings money and food to poor parts of the country that can't afford other foods. Additionally, you'd be crushing an industry that is actively bringing new foods to market that aren't available in other countries, but for which China may one day be the primary agricultural provider.
Not an easy ask for any country to do, let alone a developing one.
If you're asking for better regulation of these markets, then I am sure China will do so over time. But authoritarian countries will never be able to self regulate to the degree a rule-of-law country does. Authoritarianism breeds a "if you're not cheating, you're not trying" mentality that undermines regulatory attempts.
Yeah, they were meant to be largely banned since SARS1, the presence of raccoon dogs and foxes at the market in Wuhan is deeply problematic -- all of the people skeptical of China can still be skeptical!
They grow garlic with sewer water and the air is polluted because they're cranking out everything the world buys in suicide netted factories. China is a developing country, do you think government officials are going to go all around regulating wild life markets along with every other threat? They have the environmental and mental health concern of 1960's America.
1960s America led to 1970s America, which had a lot more concern for the environment. It's inevitable that as problems accumulate, people affected by them will want to do something about it.
1970's America wasn't anywhere near as poverty struck as China. It's really difficult to care about the world around you when you can't even take care at home.
In 1975 the US GDP was about $7500/yr per capita (in 2021 dollars). Today the Chinese GDP per capita is around $10k/yr (more like 19k accounting for purchasing power parity).
The 1975 US Household median income was ~$13,000 (approx $65,000-70,0000 in 2019 dollars) [0][1]
Chinese household median income is around $4,700-4,800 in 2021, with massive disparities between First world comparable regions such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin, and rust belt regions like Wuhan [2]. Even the Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has noted that 600 million Chinese earn less that $140/month [3].
This of course leads to the larger discussion about GDP per capita being a weak metric to use when analyzing regional development, but in general China is by most standards still a developing middle income country with a (relatively) small and overperforming hinterland.
Due to various policies, China is a relatively low-trust society. Of course, it's also low trust because ripping people off isn't necessarily seen as bad, it's seen as clever.