Re: China and Quality
I recently heard a news report claiming that Chinese authorities tagged about 20% of its products substandard. Officially there are statements expressing concerns that the outcry is protectionist in nature.
This protectionist idea is a sensitive subject because of the concerns that globalization have risen, including offshoring. So I'll stay away from that.
I can, in all fairness vouch that early U.S. manufactured product was often worrisome, and manufacturing conditions were often what we'd now call scandalous. It has taken many decades to cleanse our environment of the damage done by the Industrial Revolution, with more work yet to do.
Over decades of internal effort by companies and external effort via the regulation mechanism, matters have improved. One might expect the same evolution to occur in any developing country, but the current evolutions are happening at an accelerated pace and there is a great deal more media attention than 100 years ago. The other difference is that we're around to observe it.
Urgent current problems internal to China include the mismatch between food preparation abilities and preservation mechanisms. There aren't refrigiration systems we enjoy here, so preservatives are being used--but not the same preservatives as we use, to many people's dismay, but things like formaldehyde (sp?). We can look at both kinds of mechanisms: cost/profit pressures, and availability of refrigiration and safer (if they are in fact safer) chemicals to preserve foodstuffs. I am not aware if the food manufacturers that use formaldehyde in their product realize it's not healthy for human consumption, because I haven't seen proof.
Then there was that unhappy matter I heard of, baby formula with no nutrients that was said to result in over a dozen infant deaths. :mg: This is a behavioral (choice) and cost/profit pressure matter. I don't know what that formula was made of, but I can only surmise they must have known it would not be nutritious.
So correction certainly seems to be in order. Where a sense of morals/ethics/fair play aren't clearly at work, and where market forces are not sufficient to appropriately protect the public, arguably a strict and well-enforced regulation system is needed.
