China Products Declared Safe

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Posted by Dan on July 13, 2007 at 06:59 PM

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Well, not exactly.

But Chinese products are probably just as safe as products from other emerging market countries. And that is the point.

Despite all the clamor about bad Chinese product, the not so surprising reality is that China is anything but unique among emerging market countries in terms of bad product. In a post aptly entitled, "China Not Unique in Safety Problems with Its Exports," the Heritage Tidbits blog wrote on a recent New York Times article pointing out that China's food safety record actually looks pretty good, at least in comparison to some other countries:

[F]ederal inspectors have stopped more food shipments from India and Mexico in the last year than they have from China, an analysis of data maintained by the Food and Drug Administration shows.
China has had much-publicized problems with contaminated seafood -- including a temporary ban late last month on imports of five species of farm-raised seafood from China -- but federal inspectors refused produce from the Dominican Republic and candy from Denmark more often.

For instance, produce from the Dominican Republic was stopped 817 times last year, usually for containing traces of illegal pesticides. Candy from Denmark was impounded 520 times.

By comparison, Chinese seafood was stopped at the border 391 times during the last year.

"The reality is, this is not a single-country issue at all," said Carl R. Nielsen, who resigned from the Food and Drug Administration in 2005, after 28 years. His last job was director of the division of import operations and policy in the agency's Office of Regulatory Affairs. "What we are experiencing is massive globalization," he said. . . .

If one looks solely at the rejected product numbers, it appears China is doing pretty well in relation to the goods it ships out:

From July 2006 through June of this year, agency inspectors stopped 2,723 shipments of all such items from China, followed closely by India, 2,620; Mexico, 1,876; and the Dominican Republic, 887.
But China sends more products into the United States than any of those countries, at least in terms of the dollar value. In 2006, for instance, China shipped $288 billion in merchandise to the United States, compared with $198 billion from Mexico; $22 billion from India; and $5.3 billion from the Dominican Republic, records show.

The point here is not to claim China is without its food safety and other product problems. That would be ridiculous. I spend much of my time working with American and European companies on improving the safety/quality of their product from China and if I were to tell you China has no quality control issues, this business would disappear.

To a certain extent, these FDA figures reinforce what I always tout as the most important rule for sourcing from China: know your supplier. These figures show that though the bad Chinese suppliers get all the press, there are plenty of really good Chinese suppliers out there and one the key for Western businesses is to find them.

For more on China product safety, check out the following:

1. "Polls and Pols Beginning to Take Import Food Safety Seriously"
2. "China's military sounds off on food safety woes"
3. "China and the Rule of Law "
4. "New Recipe Discovery: Steamed Cardboard Buns"
5. "In Defense of Lawyers (No Joke)"
6. "How To Protect Your Company From Bad Chinese Product"

See other posts in: China Business

Comments

Great post. And much needed. China takes a lot of heat. But problems with quality control can be found in numerous low/lower-cost countries. A client of mine made a great analogy the other day--just because Paris Hilton got so much press for going to jail, doesn't mean that there aren't other little, celebrity starlets out there bending the rules.

Posted by: Audall | July 13, 2007 9:46 PM

Dan,
US inspectors have looked the other way re: china for 15 years. To say china is not as bad as some other countries is a farce, look at the crap chinese people are forced to eat and drink.

We have put all our eggs in one basket with china and we are getting our just deserts. Chinese producers don't know, don't want to know and don't care about quality or safety. Only short term profits matter so they can pimp their rides and show off all of their "golden birds" to their friends.

Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | July 13, 2007 10:58 PM

Posted by: Audall | July 14, 2007 12:20 AM

How many inspectors are tasked with inspecting items from China as compared with Mexico? Considering our govenrment's reluctance to confront either Beijing or AmCham, it is not beyond possibility that we have the same number or more people inspecting Mexican imports than Chinese, even though the volume of Chinese imports is much greater or that inspectors of Chinese products have been under pressure to look the other way.

Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | July 14, 2007 1:23 PM

Good analogy. It is always important to bring in Paris Hilton whenever possible.

Posted by: China Law Blog | July 14, 2007 3:12 PM

nh --

And you think the people in places like India and the Dominican Republic are given only the good stuff and nobody there is out pimping their rides and showing off their "golden birds"?

Posted by: China Law Blog | July 14, 2007 4:03 PM

Dan:

No county ever has or ever will get as much leeway as China has. We continuously give them sensitive industrial, economic and military information and technology in the hopes our companies will get greater market access. Even when the PLA gets caught smuggling in thousands of AK's, heroin, or in the cast of last winter, several crates full of anti-aircraft missiles, we keep doing whatever it takes to make china and their US corporate buddies happy.

Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | July 15, 2007 9:11 PM

nh: Curious, how much experience do you have with third world nations outside of China?

I've been to Mexico, and I know lots of people that have been to other parts of the world, and my generally favorable impressions of the CCP has been in relation to other third world developing countries.

Also who is "we"? One of the things I like about globalization is that it really blurs some of the distinction between "us" and "them" and I think that really helps world peace. Most people in the world are not American, and Americans need to realize that.

As far as being a corporate buddy of the CCP, you say it as if that was a bad thing. I'm not going to change your mind, but the reason I keep arguing with you, is that I do think that in a democratic debate, when people compare what this "corporate buddy of the CCP" thinks in comparison to what you think, I suspect that you'll be unpleasantly surprised at what side people end up on.

Part of the reason I blog is that it's really easy to villify big, bad evil corporations, and "traitorous buddies of the CCP" when you don't see one up close. By putting a human face to these things, this villification is much harder to do.

Posted by: Twofish | July 16, 2007 7:14 AM

twofish:

I know more than a few middle class mexicans who have lost alot of business and have to fight for raw materials because of the way China does business in their country and the fixed currency rate (which was designed to target countries like Mexico more than the US).

African dictators love China but regular Africans are really getting a bad taste in their mouth.

"I do think that in a democratic debate, when people compare what this "corporate buddy of the CCP" thinks in comparison to what you think, I suspect that you'll be unpleasantly surprised at what side people end up on."

After all of this news about tainted products coming out, I think it is you who would be surprised. Even if the debate is in Japan or Korea.

Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | July 16, 2007 9:55 AM

Nanh, you've just changed the topic.

I was asking you how much experience you have in third world countries other than China, and on what basis you are arguing that China is particularly bad for a third world government.

I don't know too many middle class Mexicans. Mexico doesn't have much of a middle class, everyone is either rich or poor, and most people I know are the poor ones.

The Chinese tainted food is a "Chinese problem of the month." What will happen is that by next month, people will have largely forgotten about it two to three months from now when it will be replaced with the latest scandal of the month.

I'm not saying that is a good thing, and being the scandal of the month is a good change to fix things that need to be fixed, I'm saying this is what is going to happen, because that's pretty much what has happened with every scandal in the last five years.

Posted by: Twofish | July 16, 2007 2:29 PM

Twofish:

I answered your question to my satisfacion.

Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | July 17, 2007 9:16 AM

US Foods impounded - genuine or retaliation?

http://www.petconnection.com/blog/2007/06/26/china-impounds-us-produce/

Posted by: Alex | July 17, 2007 11:43 PM

Genuine or retaliation? Depends on (1)actual results of the product surveys/analyses by relevant Chinese agencies; and (2) whether the Chinese Gov't found similar results in the past, but failed to act on them. Query: Can we obtain the hard data? Can we examine the methods of analysis? Do any CLB readers have a way of accessing the info?

Posted by: Law Office of Todd L. Platek | July 18, 2007 9:01 AM

Dan, I think your 7/30 "racism" blog entry should refer to the comments from our friend nanheyangrouchuan here...

Posted by: Charles Liu | July 30, 2007 11:35 PM

oh my people i guess i better throw everything out i have its all made in china lolreally get real now been using this stuff for ever get real

Posted by: Anonymous | August 19, 2007 5:48 PM