Recalling Responsibility
An American toy company recalls millions of toys made in China. A Chinese executive kills himself. Two American children fall into a coma after swallowing Aqua Dots beads manufactured in China. A Chinese reporter is jailed for trying to expose labor safety issues in Chinese factories. A Chinese factory worker’s health suffers from exposure to the toxic lead paint he works with everyday. The American toy company apologizes to China, taking responsibility for recent toy recalls and admits they were due to “design flaws”. The Chinese manufacturers of the toys are not to blame for the massive recalls.
It’s a confusing snapshot.
When Mattel Inc. recalled over 20 million toys made in China for toxic lead paint, as well as for the presence of magnets that could be easily swallowed by little children – and other issues – the media and the world stopped to notice. Like many parents, I went to the toy room and grabbed every toy I could find that was made in China. My mind was mired in questions. How could this happen? After all, there’s the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), EN71 testing (European standards), Canadian Toy safety standards and CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) guidelines. How did 20 million products slip past the scrutiny? How far back does the problem go? Will the recall shed more light on the Chinese labor situation and manufacturing practices? Who is responsible?
Someone, it appears, did take responsibility. Cheung Shu-hung, who co-owned Lee Der Industrial, the Chinese company that had manufactured many of the toys, committed suicide by hanging himself. Cynics might suggest that, just because Mattel lost over 30 million dollars, he didn’t have to self-destruct. Who would kill himself over a few million dollars in a multi-billion dollar scenario? Was it just the public humiliation? Was this the act of an individual experiencing a sudden cathartic awakening to morality in a society that somehow has never appeared overly concerned with the welfare of its workers? Or was it something else?
Conveniently, Shu-hung’s death somehow managed to help China sweep the story under the carpet. In fact, according to MSNBC, ” it is common for disgraced officials to commit suicide in China”.
Indeed, China’s abysmal track record relating to labor abuses has been swept under the carpet for a long time, notwithstanding the fact that it has been extensively documented: poor factory conditions, workplace injuries and fatalities, the absence of safety standards, questionable manufacturing practices – all covered by various international media for decades.
This type of coverage has never rattled the Chinese. They prefer to transform crisis into opportunity. But their way of handling crisis is often riddled with contradiction. For example, despite the fact that Li Dongsheng, vice minister of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce in China, said he was “very concerned about food safety in China and very concerned about protecting the rights of consumers”, a Chinese freelance reporter was sentenced to a year in jail for his creative attempts to expose China’s poor food safety record.
Although China’s new Labor Contract law came into effect January 1st of this year, it hardly addresses work conditions and safety issues. Factories continue to pollute and kill Chinese workers and citizens. Given the published history of China’s industrial abuse, the world has, until now, conveniently turned the other cheek, while China asserted its economic ambitions around the world.
In 2005, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), China’s largest offshore oil producer, tried to buy Unocal Corp, an American oil and gas company. CNNOC went in with a significantly larger bid, almost beating out a competing offer from Chevron, (another American oil company). Thanks to Senator Byron Dorgan’s efforts to introduce a bill that would prohibit any takeover or merger of the two companies, the Chinese withdrew its offer, blaming the Washington political atmosphere.
The atmosphere was not only cold; it was almost cold war. Senator Dorgon said, “It would be foolish, to say the least, to allow a foreign government, particularly one that remains committed to national one-party rule by the Communist party, to own that much of a strategic resource so vital to the U.S. economy and the national defense.” No mention back then, however, of the shameless manner in which China ran its industries. Unabashed labor negligence didn’t make the list of reasons not to sell to Chinese interests.
Earlier, in 2004, when China’s top personal computer company, Lenovo, made a bid to purchase IBM’s unprofitable PC business, Senator Dorgon was nowhere to be heard, suggesting that IT was not all that strategic in his mind. Clearly, the Chinese way of making things was not an issue climbing its way up the American political hill.
Jump forward three years to November 2007. Three months after the Mattel story broke, and two months after Mattel suddenly apologized, the Chinese owned Lenovo announced that it would build a US$20-million factory in Poland to manufacture PCs for sale in Europe and Africa. They also announced plans to set up factories in Mexico and India, spending $20 million on the Mexican plant and $10 million on the one in India. There is one US factory planned in Monterey and a fulfillment center slated for North Carolina. And so, in the land of game shows, every game has a consolation prize.
Basically, no surprises here – and no American politicians to be heard from on the subject of what the Chinese have planned in terms of safety standards, worker’s welfare and quality control. Let’s face it. Everyone knows that China is the master of cheap production for labor-intensive products. Poland, Mexico and India have plenty of cheap labor to offer. It has to be cheap, otherwise American distributors and large chains won’t be able to make the wholesale and retail margins necessary to survive, especially if they’re planning to “drop prices again” – and again -and again. This equation can’t balance cheap products with safe manufacturing practices. It’s “common” knowledge, like knowing that Chinese executives bite the bullet when the going gets tough.
After all is said and done – or implied and misinterpreted (and apologized for) – the Chinese are in control of their own economic abacus simply because they know that America is trapped by its product pricing policies and higher personal incomes. Regardless of the bad press, a product recall and an executive’s suicide, China – and the world – has to move on. Certainly, no other country has stepped forward and said anything about their “made in China” products. But what they are saying about China has nothing to do with toys.The Middle East oil producers want to cut back on oil exports to the US. Why? The emerging Chinese market is an opportunity waiting to happen. The US must be prepared to search elsewhere for its much needed oil imports because the US produces 7.61 million barrels a day, consumes 20.73 million barrels a day and only has proven reserves of 21.37 billion barrels. So who can they turn to?
Canada, especially oil-rich Alberta, is drooling over the possibility of the Middle East’s shift in its export policies. Alberta boasts almost 180 billion barrels of oil in reserve, more than all of North America’s reserves combined. Do Canadians really care about the horrific conditions Chinese factory workers endure? Will the Canucks’ foreign minister step up to the plate and adequately admonish the Middle East for catering to a nation with such despicable internal labor policies – or lack thereof? Would anyone hear them, anyway? EH?
Canada’s responsibility, like most countries, is dictated by its government, which, by implication, means the people it represents. Taxpayers want its government to focus on economic well-being. Canada needs American consumers. China also needs American consumers. America needs cheap products. Oil producing countries need new customers. So, in a world where everyone is economically joined at the hip, no one wants to take responsibility alone. (If someone apologized for abusing the truth in a forest of oilrigs, would anyone hear it?)
Chinese industry hurts its workers while American politicians panic themselves into a stimulus package to heal their own hurts. Middle East oil producers consider relationships with new export customers, setting off a chain reaction among other oil producing countries. Competition in the marketplace is killing the independent retailer as big box retailers squeeze wholesalers for lower prices. Wholesalers, in turn, squeeze manufacturers. Meanwhile, consumers are trying to determine if anything they’re buying is safe to consume.
If there is any room for hope, it is in the notion that the customer is always right. In order to stop the Chinese worker from applying toxic lead paint to a toy (and save his life), the only right thing to do is to stop buying the toy. Consumers need to start ignoring the apologies and start asking more questions about the things they consume. On the fragile trail of responsibility, the consumer is the last one in line and the last opportunity to make the right choice. At the end of the day, who’s responsible for the children playing with the toys in your house?
