the blog of the guy who wrote

that book about china

A major apparel company, Under Armour, has just recalled over 200,000 athletic  cups that were manufactured in China. 

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission stated that the cups were breaking upon impact, leading to serious harm in some cases. 

The company has suffered a PR setback as a result, and it will feel some financial pain, as well.

From BloggingStocks.com:

Under Armour will issue $20 vouchers good for future purchases of Under Armour gear, a potential new cost item of $4 million. That’s an expensive way to buy added protection, folks. Ouch!

Note: Title is a nod to television spoof created by Family Guy.

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Nearly two years after “Made in China” suffered a PR meltdown on major toy recalls, Mainland China manufacturers continue to export children’s products tainted with lead paint. Problematic merchandise was most recently discovered in Southern California. On the report, from the Associated Press:

Most of the items were imported from China and packaged with labels proclaiming them lead-free… State law prohibits the use of materials in children’s jewelry that contain more than .06% lead. Regulators said material from one children’s necklace tested at nearly 74% lead. 

I guess someone didn’t get the memo?

There are those, of course, who will say that this latest case is about ignorance, that it could have been another “misunderstanding,” that manufacturers in China are still capable of learning a lesson. What manufacturers need are strict guidelines combined with heavy penalties.

The more recent scandal in the milk industry would be an example. Individuals who adulterated milk with the toxic substance, melamine, have received harsh prison sentences. That’s the way you’re supposed to do it. This is the sort of response that solves the problem.

Really?  

The only thing milk producers have learned from the milk scandal is not to use melamine. One news report suggests that dairy folks have moved on to other protein-like substitutes that can aid in circumventing third-party laboratory testing. The new ingredient that dairy farmers are using this time is a powder extracted from tanned leather. From CRIEnglish.com: 

Leather protein powder is believed to be harder to detect than the notorious industrial chemical melamine which was added to milk powder and other dairy products in China, sickening more than 294,000 infants and killing at least six. The latest incident, in the wake of China’s melamine-tainted baby formula scandal, was first reported to China’s top quality watchdog in an anonymous letter in February this year, the Chengdu Business Daily reported.

The dairy company responsible is located in Zhejiang Province, and it employs about 100 people. You have to wonder how many employees knew about this one replacement ingredient. In the case of melamine, the number of those who understood what was being done had to have been in the hundreds, if not the thousands.

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I mentioned a few days ago that a reader in Hong Kong saw Poorly Made in China on sale in the Hong Kong International Airport.

Distribution to East Asia happened a bit faster than I’d expected, and I’ve since been informed that the book has made it to bookstores around the region.

A number of people who are based in East Asia have asked me where they might find a copy, and so I’m going to list the bookstores that I’ve been told are likely carrying the book. This is not a confirmed list, but a hint of where to check:

Hong Kong: Bloomsbury, Cosmos, Dymocks, HDS Retail, Newslink, Page One, SUP Retail, Swindon

Japan: Maruzen

Korea: Kyobo Book Centre

Philippines: Powerbooks

Singapore: Borders, Kinokuiniya, MPH, Popular, TimesnewsLink, Page One

Taiwan: Page One

Thailand: Asiabooks, Kinokuiniya

There’s an import agent for Mainland China, apparently, but I don’t have any confirmed locations. If anyone in East Asia is looking for a copy but can’t find one, welcome to drop me a direct line. I’ll do what I can to help…

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Israel and Iran were close to a blowout over Israeli fruit that made its way to Iran, but then folks discovered that while the fruit was branded with the name of a popular Israeli company, it was actually a counterfeit product from China. There was quite a bit of commotion over the fake fruit, an orange-grapefruit hybrid that is marketed out of Israel as a “Jaffa Sweetie:”

The Sweeties were brought to Iran from China, where faking the origin of goods is a common practice… Outrage followed, distribution centres stocking the fruit were sealed and accusations were traded. Such is the infamy of dealing with Israel that an Iranian official went so far as to accuse the opposition of a “citrus plot”.

The company that owns the trademark was justifiably upset about the labeling mixup. 

“First of all, it’s a bit annoying that somebody is using our brand name and registered trademark without our permission,” he said. ”Apart from this, I would like very much the Iranian people to eat Israeli fruit straight from the origin and not via China.

If only they could. Israel and Iran have no direct trade links…

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U.S. News and World Report’s “Alpha Consumer” blog has published a Q&A related to the book. Some of the questions asked were interesting to me, including this one: “Poorly Made in China might seem like a harsh title to some. Are the products coming out of Chinese factories really so poorly made?”

Here is a part of my answer to the one question: 

While some might find the book harsh, others are describing it as enlightening and funny. It could be considered farce. So many of the situations that I described in the book are comically improbable. Many have asked me after reading the book, “How could you work in such conditions?” One of the reasons I wanted to write this book was to describe the carnival-like environment in which so many of our consumer products are manufactured.

USNWR’s Alpha Consumer blog is hosted by Kimberly Palmer. The site has highlighted a number of China-related issues in recent months, and it should be considered a resource to those who are interested in U.S. consumer affairs.

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Just received a note from a reader in Hong Kong with some kind words about “Poorly Made in China:”

I’ve been around the greater China (Taiwan, Hong Kong, China) sourcing game for fifteen years or so, at both the high-end and the low-end of the spectrum, and I think your observations, critiques and understandings – of both Chinese and U.S. business decision-makers – are dead on. I’ve recommended your book to numerous friends and colleagues, and am making it mandatory reading for my HK project and quality managers. 

Now, I’ve had compliments on the book from friends and family, as well as from those who are more interested in the book from the consumer side of things, but this is my first note from a person who is working “in the field.” It is partly what I had hoped for anyway: A book that would appeal to average readers, as well as to those who are active in China business.

By the way, the reader above reports that he found the book at NewsLink in the Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA). Those who are coming to the region on business or pleasure may want to know that it is available there anyway. Until this morning, I was unaware that the book had already made its way to East Asia.

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Jackie Chan started a minor media storm by suggesting that Chinese people ought to be “controlled,” that they had no business handling their own affairs. This is how he has been quoted in the media:

I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not,… I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we’re not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.

Of all those on the Internet who have tried to slice and dice this commentary, John Pomfret at the Washington Post has come closest. He rejects the ideas floating about that this is about getting in good with the Communist Party, or that this is the rant of a “self-loathing Chinese.” Instead, Pomfret suggests, “Chan is just saying what a lot of other rich Chinese feel.”

One phrase of his was familiar:

Anyone who has conversations of depth with members of China’s elite has heard this argument before. “The quality of the average Chinese is too low,” the line goes. (Zhongguoren de suzhi tai di le.) 

This business about “suzhi tai di” is right out of my recently published book, “Poorly Made in China.” While my publisher doesn’t want me to give away too much of what’s in it, here’s something that is worth passing along in the midst of this discourse on Jackie Chan. It makes its appearance in Chapter 5:

“There, you see?”

The driver pointed to a pair of middle-aged women who were attempting to cross the street. He shook a finger in their direction and jokingly said that they did not have the sense to get to a crosswalk. 

“Tamen de suzhi tai di la. The education level of the people is too low,” he said, placing emphasis on the word tai, as if to suggest that a certain amount of ignorance was presumed, but that folks in these parts really pushed limits of tolerability. 

Now, while Pomfret and I see the Jackie Chan comment in the same light, where he says, “Chan is just saying what a lot of other rich Chinese feel,” I would support the notion that Chan is saying what a lot of average Chinese people feel. In another part of my book, Chapter 18, I take a stab at a larger point by suggesting that Mainland China is hindered by myopia. 

What had kept [China] from creating its own industrial revolution was more than likely this enduring cultural trait — an endemic myopia — and knowing that they suffered from it was what led common folk to welcome the larger and more direct role that government played in their lives. In the microcosm of the factory, this myopia was keenly felt. Workers awaited instruction from above for even the smallest task assignment or objective. They seemed incapable, or perhaps unwilling, to coordinate among themselves, to see beyond their immediate circumstance, to think long term. 

Chinese netizens who are angry with Jackie Chan are upset that he has given away too much about how average Mainland Chinese feel about themselves. This is an important issue for those who support the possibility of democracy in China.  

– 

Note: I’m aware that some would translate suzhi as “human quality.” There is no such phrase in the English language, and so the translation in the book went to “education level.” It has the ring of someone in the U.S. South who, speaking of his neighbors, complains that “they is ignorant.”

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U.S. politicians are taking their complaints over China-made drywall to the top. Senator Bill Nelson wrote a letter to Obama, asking the President to “recall” the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. While politics play a role in preventing the current wave of quality failures from China, targeting the CPSC seems like misplaced motivation. The question is whether policies put in place decades early by leading politicians have benefitted Americans more than they have caused harm. It’s time to revisit decisions made by political and business leaders back in the 1990s.

I’m not a big fan of the phrase, “perfect storm,” but the drywall case is in fact the unfortunate convergence of some powerful macroeconomic factors. The housing boom of several years ago met the Chinese export juggernaut, and it has now collided with the credit crunch. Homeowners who bought properties with China-made drywall are completely stuck — and there are thousands of them.

From a recent article, one story caught my attention:

In the Banyan Isles subdivision in Parkland’s Heron Bay, Peter Chiarelli burst into tears after he showed Wexler, D-Boca Raton, the silver teapot set that has become irrevocably tarnished black. He had bought this house to retire in, and another one for his son. Now the two luxury properties can’t be sold.

“Yesterday I was a millionaire, today I have nothing,” he said. “I can’t sell it, I can’t rent it. I’m stranded, there’s no way out.”

Real estate developers in this country will file bankruptcy as a result of the drywall scandal. Chinese operators will simply carry on with business as usual, having pocketed their profits already. That’s how it typically works anyway. Letter writing and finger pointing are fine, but lawmakers like Bill Nelson might also want to look into ways to make it easier for Americans to seek compensation from those who are actually responsible for creating quality failures.

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Still can’t figure out what’s going on with this latest quality issue out of China, but for those who are keeping track of them all:

Korea’s Food and Drug Administration claims that a source of talcum powder in China is contaminated with asbestos.  [Note: Talcum powder is a mineralogical cousin of asbestos (they are both "silicates).]

Chinese authorities have wasted no time in pulling a foreign baby powder from store shelves. The brand is called NUK, and a related link to the story can be found on CCTV.com.

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Yet another product recall involving China-made products for infants. Baby product producer, Evenflo, has issued a recall of 643,000 made-in-China high chairs. It is their third recall in four months. 

The company issued a statement, claiming that their primary goal is “always to put safety first.” 

Evenflo company representatives admitted to receiving 320 reports of seatback detachments prior to the issue of this recall. Now, if safety was so important to the company, wouldn’t you think they’d issue a recall prior to complaint #320?

A close relative of mine is about to have her first baby, and she’s asked whether she should avoid buying any crib that is made in China. In talks that I’ve given to promote “Poorly Made in China,” I’ve received this same sort of question. To be frank, I don’t know how to answer it. I will say this, however… 

Officials at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) like to talk about how each complaint they receive represents only a fraction of those who are actually upset about any specific bit on radio or television (since not nearly all of those whom are put off will take the trouble to voice their displeasure). It’s a bit like that with product recalls, actually. Since companies are loathe to pursue any product recall, you have to imagine that for every one of these national headlines, there are many, many more products that should be a cause for concern.

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