First it was the lead-based paint on the toys. Next it was the poisonous pet food. In the following month, Americans would learn just how insatiable our economy’s appetite is for Chinese manufactured goods, but more importantly, just how lax the Chinese are when it comes to safety and quality assurance of those goods.
The fact that last year’s total imports into the U.S. from all over the world account for about $2 trillion is definitely noteworthy and testament to our addiction of all things foreign: be it oil, food, toys, or whatever. Of course, there are numerous economic factors which directly affect, and many would argue, make necessary, our growing dependence on other nations for a variety of goods. But I’m not going to get into that. To me, the issue it hand is much more simple and of higher priority.
It was the lead in the paint that first set me off. Forget all of the economic factors. Forget all of the budding business relationships between our country and theirs.
The fact of the matter is that they were (maybe still are) selling us toys with POISON on them. POISON.
It dawned on me at this point that common sense had completely gone out the window and has been replaced by the idea of saving a buck to make two bucks, regardless of the potential disasters that could ensue.
Then it was the pet food. Anyone who is cognitive and socially active enough to have at least one friend knows about that.
Initially, simple deductive reasoning tells me: “If this is what they think of our kids and our pets, I wonder what they think of us?” “What about our food supply?” “It’s not like they have the most outstanding human rights record to boot. Which should tell us something, as well.”
To be fair, I think the truth is simply that they DON’T think of us past using us to make their money. And we DON’T think of them past using them for the same reason. I’m talking about the average Chinese citizen and his American counterpart. They do what they do to get their dollar, and we do the same, both economies benefit, and everyone’s supposed to be happy.
At the governmental level, the fact of the matter is that we CAN’T and SHOULDN’T depend on them to think of us when they’re sitting over there painting toy cars with lead or making pet food full of melamine. Just because we enjoy a pretty stable and cozy economic relationship with China doesn’t mean that both governments and their militaries aren’t constantly staring down long gun barrels at one another. The Chinese are too busy with all of that to worry about silly things like safety regulations. Fair enough.
But I digress.
The issue at hand, I believe, is that OUR regulatory and quality assurance bureaucracies here at home have failed us. And the companies who import these things and then sell them to us have failed us.
What about the fact that China is the leading provider of seafood to the U.S.? What about the fact they produce 80% of the world’s vitamin C? In addition to toy safety and pet food safety, what about general food safety?
In the last five years, American food imports from China have increased 140%. Recently, I read a report in which it was revealed that a substantial amount of shrimp imported from China was grown in sewage water. What do I need to do now if I want shrimp? Go out and catch it myself? Maybe so.
It’s like when a kid misbehaves and then they are rewarded for doing so. So they up the ante. These guys across the pacific are going to have to do something worse than kill a few pets and sell us poison toys before we will wake up and reevaluate our QA practices. And that’s what scares me.
