There is a global fear of anything made in china
as stated:

Dirty chopsticks picked up in new China scare

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070822-0420-china-safety- chopsticks.html


BEIJING (Reuters) - 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 in a string of Chinese 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.

Hello Linsi,

There are several things to consider, at least the following 3:

1) The PRC toy industry and some other consumer goods industries, like toothpaste do have quality problem. This is because some tricky exporters have bypassed the State Quality Control in submitting up to standard samples.

2) The problem of imported defective goods appears where the import volume becomes important. This happens regularly and is manageable. Same problem encountered by US frozen foods entering PRC.

3) PRC Quality Control Authorities are reviewing & perfecting the Inspection System. Technical Exchanges with developed countries & region like Hong Kong are being multiplied. As far as toy is concerned, 60 % of the exports are OEM products, the quality control here should be respected. Ban the Chinese toy export would cost much to the economy, the honest and ignorant ones will be the only victims. And this will certainly launch a series of Trade War. Let's do thing in a pro-active way to keep it advance, of course in a correct way.

Caroline wrote:

QUOTE:
Hello Linsi,

There are several things to consider, at least the following 3:

1) The PRC toy industry and some other consumer goods industries, like toothpaste do have quality problem. This is because some tricky exporters have bypassed the State Quality Control in submitting up to standard samples.

2) The problem of imported defective goods appears where the import volume becomes important. This happens regularly and is manageable. Same problem encountered by US frozen foods entering PRC.

3) PRC Quality Control Authorities are reviewing & perfecting the Inspection System. Technical Exchanges with developed countries & region like Hong Kong are being multiplied. As far as toy is concerned, 60 % of the exports are OEM products, the quality control here should be respected. Ban the Chinese toy export would cost much to the economy, the honest and ignorant ones will be the only victims. And this will certainly launch a series of Trade War. Let's do thing in a pro-active way to keep it advance, of course in a correct way.

thank you for your reply caroline, i just hope you would always find the time to discuss things here in our forum community..

yes i agree on your number 1- answer

here is a link were tricky exporters come in the frame
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/International__Business/ China_investigating_suicide_of_toy_manufacturer_/articleshow/ 2279497.cms

I also agree about number 2- answer

about number 3-

I also agree that banning will do more harm
as presented in this link exemplifying food imports
as one aspect:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ban-chinese-food-imports-would/ story.aspx?guid=%7B4CC90ED2-15EC-4AA9-B692-8E6BF4FCDE48%7D

there is also no problem with OEM products, the source of
complaints are rather high concentration of solutions
as in formaldehyde, lead and other toxic materials.-

Thank you Linsi.
I don't rely on one article to give my points of view, I use to look into the problem in getting info from various sources (multimedia & discussions) & make a summary out of all these, so I don't upload links

Just to add one point, many fabrics used by brand name fashion distributed in China are found to contain excessive formaldehyde.

Caroline wrote:

QUOTE:
Thank you Linsi.
I don't rely on one article to give my points of view, I use to look into the problem in getting info from various sources (multimedia & discussions) & make a summary out of all these, so I don't upload links:(

Just to add one point, many fabrics used by brand name fashion distributed in China are found to contain excessive formaldehyde. :(

hello caroline

i agree, i too donot rely on one article to state my views but rather give one example ( a link for an article as the case maybe) of the many choices about an issue or events just to support a case..



views on the bbc radio stated that china has a lax regulatory law about import-export products.

hope you can further enlighten us and our readers about that comment.

hoping that other chinese friends would also add to our knowledge like what you do.

Hello Linsi,

Concerning uplink article as support, my opinion is that one article might be of unilateral view and cannot be representative. Anyway it is just a question of principles which might differ one from another.

Let’s come back to the PRC goods quality issue. Thank you for your trust on my views.

1) You quote the BBC text saying that “China has a lax regulatory law on import-export products”. Not being a jurist, I’m not in a position to comment this sentence.

However, if we are talking about Product Responsibility for goods passing the border, it’s written in the Foreign Trade Law; the“Import-Export Regulations” are of Administrative nature. Moreover, details of quality control differ with products which each has their own regulations.

2) If we look at the responsibility side, 3 parties should be responsible: the manufacturer, the exporter and the importer particularly the OEM importer. However, in order to avoid unnecessary and harmful trade wars, time is now to take immediate remedial actions.

To that end, the Chinese Government responsive measures are:

1° identify the responsibility

2° promulgate a Quality & Safety Regulation reshaping remedial program on 8 categories of consumer goods (agricultural, food processing, foods circulation, catering, pharmaceuticals, pork meat, all consumer goods related to public health & safety, all import-export goods)

3° establish an Action Plan sending out an On-site Inspection team of around 7000 controllers couuntry wide.

3) According to Testing Data from USA, Europe & Japan, passing rate of PRC imported food exceeds 99% & is higher than those from other developed countries. Due to the existence of atomized manufacturing units and to the fact that many Mainlanders’consciousness on quality
is still relatively low (with over 1,3 billion habitants, only a tiny percentage is large in absolute number), the quality is a daily problem on the domestic market. The exported goods are in a sense much better controlled than those circulating on the local market. As the World 4th economic power n terms of GDP (nominal) according to the World Bank (2006 report), probably going to be 3rd, China should better be treated as be a strategic partner, working together towards the best objectives.

May I repeat that the Quality problem is not only Chinese, it is also European & American: there are detective foods, cell phone batteries and cars… It’s a bit odd that only Chinese stories cause much ink spilled…

Important is that faults are recognized, repairing actions set up & implemented.

a very interesting rticle about barbie dolls




Hong Kong Barbie meets Japan Barbie


NEW YORK - Mattel's recent recall of lead-tainted toys made in China reminded me of my childhood.

As a Chinese American girl growing up in the 1970s,

I was fascinated by Barbie's rear end. Not only was it plump and round, like her prominent breasts, but my doll carried this inscription: "Made in Hong Kong."


In the 1960s, long before outsourcing became rampant in other industries,

Mattel and other toy manufacturers opened factories in Asia, employing thousands of poor, single women.

My mother was one of them. "In 1965, I worked in a toy factory in Hong Kong," she recalled. "I made the equivalent of a dollar a day putting arms and legs into blond, blue-eyed dolls."


As it turned out, Barbie didn't stay in Hong Kong, either. In the 1980s, Barbie's provenance changed --

most were "Made in the Philippines," with some made in Malaysia or Thailand.



What happened? Progress. As Hong Kong's economy took off and labor costs rose, Mattel literally saw the writing on Barbie's butt and moved from the then-British colony to cheaper shores. By the 1990s, she came from Indonesia; in 2007, Barbie is, like millions of other goods,



"Made in China."



How times have changed. My mother never imagined that her Third World country would ever pose an economic threat to the U.S.


"I used to envy American workers; the dollar was worth so much," she said. Who knew that, 40 years later, cheap labor would be energizing China's booming economy,


and the U.S. would be struggling under a huge budget deficit and a weak dollar?







cheap labor in china rings a bell for me- could anyone explain how could we well relate cheap labor to those children being kidnapped or forced to work in brick factories, etc-- etc?

i was just wondering, is that a tip of a massive iceberg?
and call it cheap labor?

just a thought.