"Tit-for-tat safety spats

A NUMBER of made-in-China products have been taken off the shelves recently for

safety reasons, while China has hit back with its own list of unsafe foreign

imports.


PROBLEMATIC PRODUCTS IMPORTED BY CHINA


Aug 9: China charges that 24 imported gas turbines made by US industrial

institution General Electric had caused several big accidents.


Aug 15: China bans the import of three types of biscuits made by Arnott’s

Indonesia, a subsidiary of US food giant Campbell Soup, saying the biscuits

contain levels of aluminium three times beyond the safety threshold.


Aug 21: China announces that it returned 272 heart pacemakers imported from

the US in April after quality tests found problems.


Aug 22: China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and

Quarantine says it has found pesticides, poisonous weeds, and dirt in soy bean

imports from the US. The beans – crushed for oil and used as animal feed – are

the biggest single US farm export to China.


PROBLEMATIC MADE-IN-CHINA PRODUCTS


Aug 1 and Aug 15: US toy giant Mattel issues two separate recalls involving

over 20 million Chinese-made toys it says were coated in lead-laced paint and

contained small magnets harmful to children.


Aug 18: A chain of Dutch bed stores says it will be recalling more than 1,300

Chinese-made foam mattresses amid fears that they had been sprayed with toxic

insecticide.


Aug 19: New Zealand launches an investigation into woollen and cotton clothes

made in China after scientists find dangerous levels of formaldehyde.


Aug 22: Chinese-made blankets found to contain high levels of formaldehyde are

recalled across Australia and New Zealand."



Reflections-->>

There are 2 reasons why I chose this article. First, would definitely be because of the extremely cool title.
Tit- for -tat safety spats. The author has obviously attempted to use a rhyme in the title to hold our attention.
What can I say? It has done its job. 

Secondly, this article is extremely important in our world today. China is the largest producers in the world.
Overturn your plastic bottles, “Made in China”. Look at the back of your CPUs. “Made in China”.
Check the brand of your toilet paper. “Made in China”. There are even some students who are, no offence,
“Made in China”. We cannot deny that China produces quality products that we all use, except that we don’t
really use the Chinese students per say. However, these recent scares have put off many people from buying
“Made in China” products. This said, it’s hard to find a whole inventory of items that are not “Made in China”.  

This article presents a new point of view to the whole issue. Apparently, China has hit back (tit-for-tat) at USA by pointing out some of their own product failures. My views on these issues consist of 2 points.

Firstly, I would like to point out that 2 wrongs do not make a right. When China products were shot down by the various nations of the world, it made me think if it was really correct to use this approach to rebuff China. By stating this internationally and publicly, it is actually gravely hurting China’s economy and sales. This might be part of politics which I do not understand, but using my narrow mindset, I feel that it was quite wrong to do this. One or two small companies in the large vast of land we call China might have produced some inferior goods. But the rest of the companies surely have not.

Also, in retaliation, China shot down some of the USA’s product as well. Even though this is warranted, I feel that it just serves to sour the relationship between the 2 countries. The paragraph above applies in this case as well.

I feel that a correct solution would be to just forget this entire incident. Is it worth it to sour relationships just because of some toys (maybe not some, a lot). Some people argue that these toys could harm millions of people all around the world, but denouncing all Chinese products could cause the same number of people to be jobless. This may be an exaggeration, but according to my knowledge, most jobs in China are high labour. One company losing their business could leave hundreds of people jobless. The hit back on the USA was also uncalled for, as when two people start to quarrel among themselves, their credibility is lessened. This is parallel to what is happening now.

Perhaps, it is also not so good to just complain about something, but actually do something about it, companies all around the world could give incentives for good products manufactured by these Chinese companies. According to what I know, Chinese products are extremely lowly priced. With such low cost, there are bound to be mistakes. With incentives, it could help reduce the number of these mistakes.