Deeper threat lies behind 'made in China' product woes

The spate of stories coming out of China in the past few months about dangerously poisonous and fake foods, medicines and consumer goods has been extraordinary.

It started with tales of hundreds of North American and European pets dying after eating Chinese-made pet food laced with melamine.

Then there was the toothpaste and cough medicine containing a chemical used in antifreeze and brake fluid. The cough medicine may have killed a hundred people.

Most recently we have had toy trains and dolls decorated with paints containing dangerous levels of lead, poisonous plastic baby bibs, defective car tires, foods with unacceptable levels of chemicals, fake diabetes testing strips and clothes containing formaldehyde in concentrations 900 times greater than recommended for contact with human skin.

Chinese authorities have moved swiftly to try to contain the damage to the "made in China" brand and the country's continuing prospects as the workshop of the world.

The head of China's State Food and Drug Administration, Zhen Xiaoyu, was executed for taking about $1 million US to approve false medical drugs, and his deputy has also been sentenced to death. High-profile inspections have been followed by the closure of about 180 food manufacturing and processing companies.

Officials insist 99 per cent of Chinese products are safe and that criticism is motivated by foreign envy and anxiety at the country's continuing economic development success. They point particularly at the United States, whose trade imbalance with China is running at around $20 billion US a month and growing.

The head of China's quality watchdog organization, Li Changjiang, told a Chinese television talk show audience at the weekend that talk of defective Chinese goods is grossly exaggerated.

The amounts of lead paint found on the Mattel toys was so small as to be of no consequence, he said. "Demonizing Chinese products, or talking of the Chinese product threat, is simply a new kind of trade protectionism."

The criticism cannot be deflected that easily, because Li's own organization recently reported that one-fifth of all products made in China for the domestic market don't meet safety standards. And the quality of about 75 per cent of all food produced and sold in China is entirely unregulated.

Chinese people have become very much aware, and very angry, at the general pollution of the world around them. There are almost constant stories of often violent protests against pollution caused by China's largely unregulated, helter-skelter drive for economic advancement.

Foreign investors and multi-national companies taking advantage of China's low production costs stemming from its thinly-regulated factory standards and serf-like labour conditions cannot convincingly claim ignorance.

They set up factories in China or contract with Chinese suppliers because the production conditions are Dickensian. That's the whole point of going there, and the most innocent investors and contractors are only those who decide not to look too closely at what they are involved with.