* EU proposes tests, restrictions on China milk products

* UNICEF and WHO urge enforcement of quality standards

* Mothers urged to breast feed infants

* India, Vietnam, Nepal and France ban Chinese milk products

By James Pomfret

HONG KONG, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The European Commission proposed on Thursday tests and restrictions on Chinese food products containing powdered milk as UNICEF and the World Health Organisation called China's growing milk scandal "deplorable".

Beijing is battling public alarm and international dismay after thousands of Chinese children were hospitalised, sick from infant milk formula tainted with melamine, a cheap industrial chemical that can be used to cheat quality checks.

A European Commission spokeswoman said EU authorities would test 100 percent of products from China containing more than 15 percent of milk powder, and would ban all products for children and young people containing any proportion of milk.

This came as the World Health Organisation and UNICEF issued a joint statement saying the deliberate contamination of food for infants and young children was "particularly deplorable".

But the two agencies said Beijing's plan to overhaul its food safety would help prevent a recurrence.

"We are confident that swift and firm actions are being taken by China's food safety authorities to investigate this incident fully."

"We also expect that following the investigation and in the context of the Chinese government's increasing attention to food safety, better regulation of foods for infants and young children will be enforced," the two organisations said in a statement.

The WHO and UNICEF urged mothers to breast feed their infants, a need further underscored by "alarming examples" of tainted formula scandals in China and around the world.

DIFFICULT TASK

Despite mounting international expectations for a food safety overhaul, China's vast size and complex web of government agencies and product quality watchdogs has long made maintaining standards a problematic and herculean task.

Inconsistent regulations, poor enforcement, weak rule of law and powerful local officials and businessmen have allowed illicit operations and practices to thrive with sometimes minimal and patchy scrutiny from central authorities.

Even with official pronouncements that the melamine scandal was being controlled, evidence has grown that the industrial chemical's use may be more pervasive than previously thought.

A feedmill owner in Heilongjiang province told Reuters its use among farmers and feed-ingredient manufacturers was "rampant" in several northern provinces.

While the scandal has triggered arrests and official sackings in China, the political repercussions began to spread overseas.

Taiwan Health Minister Lin Fang-yue tendered his resignation after 25 tonnes of potentially tainted milk powder were imported to the island, the Taiwanese Central News Agency reported.

Nitrogen-rich melamine can be added to substandard or watered-down milk to fool quality checks, which often use nitrogen levels to measure the amount of protein in milk.

The chemical is used in pesticides and in making plastics.

So far, four deaths have been blamed on kidney stones and agonising complications caused by the toxic milk.

China's Ministry of Agriculture has ordered local agricultural, animal husbandry and veterinary departments to take more effective measures to protect dairy farmers' interests and stabilise milk production.

The Foreign Ministry, seeking to reassure a worried world the government is tackling the scandal, repeated that China was willing to increase cooperation with food safety departments in other parts of the world to help stop the case widening.

"China will continue to take a highly responsible attitude in dealing with the problem," said spokesman Liu Jianchao.

MORE BANS, RECALL

Despite Beijing's reassurances, more and more countries have taken steps against milk imports from China.

India became the largest and most populous country to announce a ban on Chinese milk and milk products on Thursday, with the ban to remain in force for three months.

Thailand impounded Chinese milk products in warehouses, while Vietnam and Nepal halted sales of all Chinese milk products and would now increase testing of such imports.

In army-ruled Myanmar, authorities said they would destroy contaminated infant formula from China.

South Korea began recalling products with melamine after the Korea Food and Drug Administration found tainted rice cookies made for a South Korean firm by one of its divisions in China.

Singapore said it had tested melamine in five more products including two Dutch Lady fruit-flavoured milk products.

Global coffee giant Starbucks said it had started using fresh milk from a Hong Kong milk supplier in 55 of its stores in southern China, ditching its usual China supplier.

In Europe, ahead of the EU move, France banned all food items containing Chinese milk products. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Tan Ee Lyn in Hong Kong, Kevin Lim in Singapore, Francois Murphy in Paris, Ho Binh Minh in Hanoi, Biman Mukherji in New Delhi, Kim Junghyun in Seoul, Gopal Sharma in Kathmandu, Aung Hla Tun in Yangon and Vithoon Amorn in Bangkok; Editing by Jerry Norton)

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