Time & Perspective Quote by Jill Robinson

The line lands like a progress report that refuses to let anyone off the hook. Jill Robinson opens with a cautiously optimistic nod to shifting attitudes, then snaps the reader back to the stubborn headline fact: despite change, the scale of dog consumption in China remains unmatched. The construction is doing moral work. “People’s attitudes” is deliberately broad and almost sociological, suggesting urbanization, younger generations, and growing pet culture. But “still” functions as a hard brake, implying that incremental reform can coexist with ongoing mass harm.

Robinson’s intent feels less like shaming a monolithic “China” than pressuring complacency in the face of partial victories. By choosing “over the past 15 years,” she anchors the issue in a modern timeline - not an ancient tradition beyond critique, not a fleeting scandal either. Fifteen years is long enough to demonstrate that change is possible, and long enough to argue that continued consumption is a policy, market, and enforcement problem, not an inevitability.

The subtext is strategic advocacy: if attitudes are evolving, then campaigns, legislation, and consumer pressure can accelerate the shift. Calling China “the world’s biggest consumer” also internationalizes responsibility. It invites Western readers to see this as a global animal welfare battle with measurable stakes, not a cultural curiosity to gawk at. The sentence works because it balances hope and indictment - a tight rhetorical move that keeps momentum without laundering the reality.