Newest China Product Scandal: Dirty Chopsticks
August 22nd, 2007 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
The revelations reflecting the lack of quality control and safety standards in China aren’t over yet. The latest scandal involves chopsticks:
A Beijing factory recycled used chopsticks and sold up to 100,000 pairs a day without any form of disinfection, a newspaper said on Wednesday, the latest is a string of food and product safety scares.
Counterfeit, shoddy and dangerous products are widespread in China, whose exports have been rocked in recent months by a spate of safety scandals, ranging from pet food to medicine, tires, toothpaste and toys.
The owner, identified only by his surname Wu, said he had sold the recycled chopsticks for 0.04 yuan a pair and made an average of about 1,000 yuan ($130) a day.
Wu, who had no license to sell the goods, said he had sold 100,000 pairs a day when business was good.
China, on track to overtake the United States this year as the world’s second-largest exporter, lacks a basic food safety law and the manpower to enforce food and drug safety regulations at home or for export. Imports are generally carefully scrutinized.
A lack of business ethics and a spiritual vacuum after China embraced economic reforms in the late 1970s have been blamed for unscrupulous business practices and corruption.
Indeed, there are bunch of high-tech scandals in China as well including a drug company using an ingredient that can cause kidney failure. And earlier this summer, Eighteen big hospitals in northeastern China were embroiled in a scandal for using fake plasma drip.
Just a year ago China’s products had a different reputation than they do now. In the 50s, comedians made jokes about “Made in Japan.” In more recent history, “Made in Hong Kong” was common and some of their goods were criticized.
But at first glance the China scandal seems deeper since the implications are much more severe so the label “Made in China” now has an image not just of shoddiness but in some cases of being dangerous. Are all of these scandals taken together a telling body blow to China’s products, reputation and future international business?
Adrian Hamilton, writing in the Independent, thinks it is not:
Go back another generation and it was the Japanese accused of the same crimes, from cars to toys. And the same is happening to China now.
Much though its critics may wish China to fall at this hurdle by a string of scandals about its products, it has to be said that it is unlikely to happen.
The rush of bad news may slow the rise in consumer demand temporarily and even persuade some retail companies to have second thoughts about sourcing in Asia, but on the wider stage it will do little to stop China’s manufacturing growth.
The West goes there particularly for clothing and toys, but go round Asia and every store is full of Chinese-made white goods. Televisions, cookers, refrigerators, air conditioners, you name it and China has now a virtual monopoly of the trade.
As with Japan before it — and with similar single-minded determination — the country is moving upmarket. Next will come cars, engines and aircraft.
China is on a self-generating growth curve and it is difficult to see what, other than internal upheaval, can stop it. Certainly when it comes to manufactured goods rather than services, all the talk of India’s rise to equal and even surpass it is simply wishful thinking.
But he doesn’t see the scandals ending soon He notes that Chinese government as calling criticism of its scandals and aggressive marketing as sheer hypocrisy and thinks there has to be a more profound change before any major change in an era where globalization also means more publicity due to its role in helping the spread of information:
China’s response to the scandals so far has been to lop off a few heads in public in acts of disgrace and execution. But this is just a show, and particularly grisly one.
The real change will only come with a change of culture down the line, when the people themselves are no longer willing to accept the corruption and abuse of human rights that has come with the economic miracle.
The recent, much publicised scandal of the slave children taken from their parents to work in the brick factories of southern China was exposed not by the purchasers or the government but by the much abused (and censored) press.
Once the story was out, the government had to act for internal not external reasons. In that sense Beijing is wrong. This isn’t the 19th century and China can’t behave as the British, Americans, French and Dutch did then.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 5:43 am and is filed under Asia, China, Business. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
