China threatens brands and consumers

China is bad for brands and threatens consumer safety. Why did Mattel executives grovel to the Chinese for damage done to the reputation of Chinese-made goods by its recall of millions of toys for safety reasons? The company now says it was its fault – a design problem. Don’t believe it.

Mattel generates much of its profit in China. So it is allowing the Chinese Government to rewrite the rules of product safety.

Mattel now says that it recalled too many products. It agreed with the Li Changjiang, head of China's product quality watchdog: "you cannot recall 10,000 products just because one is sub-standard". Yes you do. This is in fact gold standard product safety practice in the free world. Find a piece of glass in one jar; recall the lot.
What we are seeing is the dark side of dealing with China – people, brands, companies, nobody has rights in China. Everyone must bow down to the State. China is today still the same totalitarian dictatorship that it was under Mao Tse Tung. All that has changed is the “Open For Business” sign it has hung out.

Mattel clearly learned this lesson fast. So, if Mattel’s line is right, the makers of the tyres and toothpastes that were recalled also made ‘design faults’. Can food importers have design faults?

The language of the Mattel apology mimics that of “self criticism” speeches the victims of Chinese Communist regimes were forced to make to howling crowds just before they were dragged out and shot. (China today executes more of its citizens than any other nation on earth.)

So, when the rest of the world – chasing a buck – made China its manufacturing plant, it also outsourced control of customer safety and a bunch of other things, like massive pollution, sweatshop conditions for employees, and ultimately the reputations of its brands.

History tells us that China will not rise to meet our standards. We must descend to hers. The Chinese threat to the capitalist system is greater now than it ever was under Mao.