A major product recall is one of those worst-case corporate scenarios that no company ever wants to face. So when the Lee Der Toy Company — which manufactures Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer toys for Mattel — saw 1.5 million of its toys recalled from sales due to lead contamination of the paint used in manufacturing, one can appreciate the shame and horror Lee Der’s Chinese co-owner Zhang Shuhong must have felt. For Zhang, however, the fiasco was more than a cause for professional ruin; it became a life-ending situation when he was found dead on Saturday in his factory after an apparent suicide.
Furthermore, the toy factory owner’s death is not the first to come as a result of faulty Chinese production debacles. Earlier last month, the Chinese government executed its former top food and drug regulator for taking bribes to approve untested medicine, in an attempt to very publicly show the rest of the world that it was serious about improving the safety of Chinese products.
This most recent recall is just another notch in the belt for China’s disastrous year in manufactured and exported goods. From diabetes medications killing users in Panama and the massive pet food recall to a global toothpaste scare and even faulty tires, Chinese manufacturers and the country as a whole are facing a huge public relations burden and increasing distrust from consumers worldwide. There is even a popular web video making the rounds of a Chinese-made automobile failing its crash test so badly, one actually feels sympathy for the dummies.
The string of recalls of Chinese-made products has heightened trade tensions between the United States and China, whose trade relationship is enormous, with the U.S. importing a much greater capacity than they export; the US-China Business Council cites that U.S. imports from China were up 19% in the first quarter of 2007, totaling the bilateral trade deficit to $57 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2007.
These numbers may not fare so well in the following quarters, however, due to the alarming quantity of contaminated goods shipping from China being discovered and publicized. There were over 107 food imports alone from China that the FDA detained at U.S. ports just this April, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.
Additionally, the timing of these import contamination scares could not be worse for the rising super power. Beijing is slated to host the 2008 Olympic Games, and is desperately trying to alleviate the fears of investors, visitors and athletes alike. For China, which is hosting the Olympics for the first time in its history, this is a moment of immense pride, one that they would not like to see tarnished by the country’s increasingly spotty manufacturing record. But even if executing the food and drug chief and the Lee Der suicide were to make the perception of a troubled manufacturing sector go away, the country’s problems are hardly solved. Just last week a report came out criticizing the terrible air quality in Beijing, and some countries are advising their athletes to arrive at the games as late as possible to limit their exposure to the smog-filled atmosphere. With problems like these to contend with, somehow toxic toothpaste and Poison Me Elmo dolls recede into the background, as hard as that may be to imagine.
But maybe China’s public relations officials or its regulators still have a trick up their sleeve. Let us hope so, anyway, for their sake. For until they figure out some way to re-instill worldwide faith in their products, it’s possible we’ll be seeing fewer little gold “Made in China” stickers on U.S. shelves, if not for the U.S. sellers lower stocking of the Chinese products, then for American consumers fear and avoidance of the ubiquitous cheap products they’ve become so accustomed to.
Maya Grinberg
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