U.S. experts and members of the media have spoken out against demonizing Chinese products, saying some foreign reports are playing up the quality problems with ulterior motives.
"China has been portrayed as a nation blind to hygiene and blissfully unconcerned about recent reports of food contamination, " said a commentary carried by The Washington Post recently. "That's troubling, because it reinforces the notion that befouled food is the consequence of a foul culture."
The writer recalled that "food libel" has long been an aspect of a larger fear of China.
"The association of Chinese with dubious edibles has insinuated itself into our cultural consciousness in small and seemingly trivial ways -- in schoolyard taunting, in sitcom gags about takeout food, in standup monologues about puppy chow mein," he said.
The commentary said some U.S. media, with a hint of racism, were using irrelevant cases or just a few cases to make the safety issue much bigger than it was.
For example, in May, the conservative news organ WorldNetDaily.com asked, "Is China Trying to Poison Americans and Their Pets?"
"The nativist drumbeat has only pounded louder ever since, suggesting that China has been waging a secret biowarfare campaign to destroy the United States from deep, deep within -- planting WMDs in the Wal-Mart cart, if you will," the commentary said.
"Yellow-peril imagery has been oozing from the extreme margins into the mainstream," the article said, adding that if Chinese sources were stripped from the food-industry supply chain, U.S. corporations would simply turn to other low-cost exporters, with comparably poorer safety records.
Pointing the finger at Asian imports was the default PR strategy for
U.S. auto manufacturers in the 1970s because it was easier to blame faceless, nameless hordes of foreigners than to address the industry's real problems, the article recalled.
Many experts agreed that problems exist in China's products safety complex, but also pointed out the U.S. and the world should share the blame for the defective China Products.
A report released by two Canadian business professors days ago concluded that most recalls of toys made in China were because of design errors, not manufacturing problems or the lead paint issue.
The report, which analyzed Chinese-made toy recalls by going through recalls issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission from 1988 to August, 2007, found of the 550 toy recalls, 76.4 percent were due to problems that could be attributed to design flaws.
Of the 20 million toys recalled by Mattel in the past month, 80 percent were because they contained small magnets, which is a design flaw, said the report.
However, all of the media focus has been on the lead paint issue, said University of Manitoba business professor Hari Bapuji, who prepared the report with University of Western Ontario international business professor Paul W. Beamish.
"Companies like Mattel have a responsibility to ensure that the products that they bring to China to be manufactured are safe and conform to the standards of this part of the world," Bapuji said. "They cannot simply escape the blame by saying 'It's the manufacturer in China.'"
Along with the news coverage demonizing Chinese products are a small number of American politicians who have raised doubts over the quality of Chinese food imports merely to enhance their own political status, warned some analysts, believing protectionist moves will be harmful to both sides.
Nancy Nord, acting chairwoman of U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, has warned against turning a product safety issue with China into a trade issue.
"I think it will be very foolish to turn a safety issue into a trade issue," she said. "The safety issue is safety. It impacts both Chinese and American consumers."
Source: Xinhua
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