December 15, 2007
Avoid Chinese Farmed Seafood Products
Having observed several fish farms in China -- shockingly unclean conditions -- I have always avoided the purchase of farmed fish and fish products originating anywhere in Asia, except for Japan. David Barboza's article strongly suggests that you do, too:
“Our waters here are filthy,” said Ye Chao, an eel and shrimp farmer who has 20 giant ponds in western Fuqing. “There are simply too many aquaculture farms in this area. They’re all discharging water here, fouling up other farms.”
One nervously laughs, hearing of outlandish harvesting methods illiterate peasants use on fish they themselves consume. Thai farmers using cheap pesticides to kill whole schools of fish for easy netting; Cambodians using grenades.
We absolutely can not trust the safety of seafood raised on farms in China. Regulatory schema adopted by the U.S. can not possibly be adequate protection. The FDA has been as ineffective over the past 10 years as any branch of the federal government, having been completely aware of the breadth of this problem, with evidently little movement. Only 210 import refusals for illegal drugs for the entire U.S.? (However, the FDA appears to be pleased to announce its advice on the safe sources of puffer fish.)
The Wall Street Journal reports:
A Chinese seafood company exempted from U.S. safety inspections under a pilot project has been cited by Canada after a cancer-causing antibiotic was detected in a shipment of frozen shrimp.
Wonder how that one got by us?
Only about 1% of most imports are subject to FDA inspections. But the FDA blocks all imports of five types of farm-raised seafood from China -- shrimp, catfish, eel, basa and dace -- until they are proved to be free or contaminants. Importers pay for the tests, which run up to $3,000 a shipment.
But tilapia, monkfish and pollock from China appear on our grocery shelves more often than any of these, except for shrimp. And shippers can become expertly creative at misnaming their exports. As Mr. Barboza writes, farmers are not about to give up on their livelihoods simply for the sake of the health of those who buy from them:
Farmers have coped with the toxic waters by mixing illegal veterinary drugs and pesticides into fish feed, which helps keep their stocks alive yet leaves poisonous and carcinogenic residues in seafood, posing health threats to consumers.
Close your wallet to these products. You can have no idea what you might ingest. On the other hand, I know what I am eating when I fry up the bluefish I caught as they ran the waters off Montauk in late summer.
Posted by Richard at 2:44 PM | Comments (1)December 12, 2007
FDA Inspectors Embedded in Chinese Food Production System?
From the New York Times: China Agrees to Post U.S. Safety Officials in Its Food Factories.
Embedded, like Judith Miller in Iraq?
Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of health and human services, said he expected that Food and Drug Administration officials would eventually be embedded in China’s food safety bureaucracy to help train Chinese officials and keep records on their inspections.
Did Mr. Leavitt make use of the word "embedded" in conversation with the interviewing journalist, Steven Weisman? Or did Mr. Weisman himself choose that word, pregnant with negative connotation, while lacking a direct quotation from Mr. Leavitt?
China and the United States, seeking to ease the furor over the safety of food exports, signed an agreement Tuesday calling for a greater American role in certifying and inspecting Chinese food products, including an increased presence of American officials at Chinese production plants.
This should help, shouldn't it? English speaking inspectors in an entirely Chinese environment. Many thousands of factories to be monitored -- extraordinary cost of bringing American inspectors to China, housing and feeding them, etc...
This agreement will provide an opportunity to have our people here on a continuous basis with expertise so that we can work with our Chinese colleagues in helping to develop good practices,” Dr. von Eschenbach said.
People is plural, meaning at least two. But the precise number of inspectors was not actually specified.
American officials said that the agreement did not cover all the food products sought for tighter inspections, but that it could be expanded. It is to cover some preserved foods, pet food ingredients and farm-raised fish, all products that the United States has said were tainted.
But, wait! Only a few food groups would undergo any inspection at all.
One may conclude that this initiative has been a major failure, from conception to implementation, on the part of American food and safety officials. Can one, however, consider this a public relations success?
Posted by Richard at 7:03 PM | Comments (0)November 3, 2007
Diamonds for the Chinese Masses
Baseball for the Chinese masses? The State Department sending Cal Ripken to Shanghai? Yes, yes, I know something of the hallowed traditions of Japanese baseball and more recently the Taiwanese leagues. Those were begun on sandlots by boys imitating the American soldiers stationed on military bases, and they grew organically.
In the case of China, as with so much else, Chinese "interest" in the sport, of which there is extraordinarily little, is a top down affair, undoubtedly spurred on by the highest levels of sporting administration simply as a result of baseball's inclusion as an Olympic sport. Although eliminated from the 2012 Games, baseball may return in 2016. Surely, there is some long-term planning going on in the General Administration of Sport.
From the American State Department's viewpoint, what is the value in assisting a fledgling Chinese Olympic effort? Not, apparently, the expansion of commerce for sporting goods makers, whose manufacturing base has been China for many years. (Think about it, Mr. Rawlings said to his underlings, a glove for every boy in China! If it had never been said aloud, it was surely thought.)
An effort in fostering Friendship between the Great Chinese People and the Great American People? (That phrase circa 1975.) If so, the substance of our relations has not ventured far from Ping-Pong Diplomacy, but surely it has.
It looks more like a charm offensive. If media is to be believed, and I am not suggesting it should, much of the world has recently come to think very poorly of America. Baseball, strongly identified with the American, is a happy game -- a typically American pastime that might be used to get good press at a time of extraordinary need.
Baseball in China -- bizzare meeting place of the American tendency to proselytize; a State Department whose public relations operates in crisis mode; an aggresively competitive Chinese officialdom; and little boys who just want to play. I hope the kids have at least some fun while the adults make use of them for their own ends.
Posted by Richard at 3:26 PM | Comments (0)October 4, 2007
U.S. Republicans Reject Free Trade -- China Takes a Hit
Over the last few years, the American ardor for China has cooled. Even I need a sweater. In speaking with Americans, the topic often turns to China. My partner in conversation, whoever it may be -- home improvement contractor, local attorney, bank teller, teacher -- is now, as a rule, adamant that China is not a friend. Of course, that person may delight in friendships with individual Chinese, but to many Americans, China has become more than just an adversary. And I believe I am right in saying that Chinese are similarly disposed towards the U.S. A dreadful state of affairs.
China has become a focal lens for the distress, anger and helplessness that Americans can no longer tolerate directing inwardly. No longer do we read encomia touting the virtues of ancient Chinese philosophies practiced in modern life, the beneficially high rate of savings and lack of debt, the care and respect towards the elderly, the veneration of education, the tolerance for long hours and hard work.
Instead, we read only that Chinese are rapacious money-makers who intentionally employ toxic materials to improve profit, dirty spitting pedestrians who copiously litter with no sense of public morality, brutal authoritarians who control the freedom of speech, association and worship that Americans believe God gave Man, and the like.
Now, mind you, there is truth in both viewpoints. But, over the past few years, Americans have focused on the latter, seemingly in forbearance of all knowledge of the former. There should at least be balance.
Historically, Americans have always expected that the next generation would enjoy an improvement in the quality of life -- until my generation, who expect its decline. The American senses narrowing opportunity amid heightened competition. What can one truly eat from the communal pie that always seems to shrink?
The hackneyed phrase is "the American dream." It originally referred to the desire of lifelong tenants to own their own home. It now seems to be used to describe a paradigmatically American ideal of plenty, a cornucopia of whatever the individual would wish for himself. But for the American individual today, there is no boom, only the residual smoke of a bust. And someone must be held to blame. Why not China? They're enjoying -- so goes the thought -- an incredible run, and entirely at our expense.
Even long held American commercial tenets may go the way of the perpetual Republican vow to cut taxes. According to this WSJ poll, even the Republicans are beginning to sluff off the centuries old hallmark of "free trade."
By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president.
Incredibly, China obliquely takes its licks in this article devoted to American politics:
We're seeing a lot of jobs farmed out," said Mr. Pirtle, whose father works for General Motors Corp. Rankled by reports of safety problems with Chinese imports, he added, "The stuff we are getting, looking at all the recalls, to be quite honest, it's junk.
Mr. Pirtle's comment is sadly typical in American society today. If it's junk, why are we're buying it? If it's of poor quality, why have we eagerly exported the work to cultures where standards are different? If it's unsafe, why have we authorized a branch of the federal government, proven time and again to be incompetent or incapable in so many aspects of life, to perform tasks it can't even begin to complete?
The decisions Americans have made, as a people, over the past generation are more the cause of our predicament than anything manufacturers across the globe could have possibly done. We will have rid ourselves of what we value most before it is over. But, for the instant moment, we deny ourselves the serious critical look at our own ideas and actions, which require far greater correction than we demand of our neighbors.
Posted by Richard at 1:10 PM | Comments (0)September 21, 2007
Mattel Apologizes to China!
A shameful kow-tow.
"Our reputation has been damaged lately by these recalls," Thomas Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president of worldwide operations, told China's quality watchdog chief, Li Changjiang, in the Chinese capital.
Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people and all of our customers who received the toys."
"But it's important for everyone to understand that the vast majority of those products that we recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel's design, not through a manufacturing flaw in Chinese manufacturers."
As of 1300 UTC on the date of this posting, the Mattel website does not display any such statement.
Beware, all ye who dare to accuse.
UPDATE (2100 UTC):
Even the Wall Street Journal, that supposed bastion of the free market ideal, and its interviewees miss the point entirely:
it also would also seem logical for Mattel officials to take a respectful stance toward Chinese officials, as 65% of its products are built there. Drew Thompson, the director of China Studies at the Washington-based think thank, the Nixon Center, says maintaining good government relations is crucial for companies that want to build a lasting corporate presence in the country. "It's incredibly important," Mr. Thompson said. "It's everything." Bates Gill, who has worked as a China specialist at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, agrees, noting that while it's important to maintain good governmental relations in most countries, it might be more so in a country like China. "The government has a lot of control over the full range of factors of production in China," Mr. Gill said. "From land usage, regulatory questions, licensing, labor, all of these inputs for profitable production in China are, you know, controlled and can be manipulated by state authorities. So you have to be cautious and make sure that those relationships are positive."
Why is it that, when discussing China, shameful bootlicking subservience under threat, a requisite of behavior before the ancient Imperial court, is tolerated by the most modern of businessmen and academics? Why is it blithely explained away, simply as an act of necessity, even of survival? Lord Macartney refused to bow to Qian Long:
In Peking Macartney refused to kow-tow, or make the nine prostrations, unless a magistrate of equal rank would kneel, and bow nine times before a portrait of George III. Both sides declined to yield. Finally, not in the palace, but in a garden, informally, the British minister obtained audience of the emperor, but in reality he was received and treated as tribute-bearer from a vassal state. Trade was opened at Canton, but the British foreigners agreed to obey the local magistrates. In a word, there was no "extra-territoriality" as yet. The foreigners' place of business was called a "factory."
[Note: If enough readers ask for it, I will find the incident in Macartney's journal of the trip, published ca. 1793.]
Bravo for that Brit! Who has the spine now?
Mattel's apology should be publicly and vociferously deplored, not simply for the craven act itself, then for its assuredly lasting after-effects upon other foreign firms, who will now find themselves pressured to act similarly, at pain of who knows what sanction.
I regret to say I can not commiserate with Mattel executives on their decision to cave. Instead, this is a lesson to all those who would foolishly place most of their eggs in one basket. I've been saying it for years, boys, China is a tough town. They play for keeps. Diversify or suffer. Or they're going to have you by the short and curlies. If they don't already.
Posted by Richard at 1:55 PM | Comments (0)May 9, 2007
Say What? Unintelligible Chinese from American Companies
Few American companies target the American home with Chinese language mass mailings. Comcast, a major cable TV and internet provider in the U.S., is one of them, but its flyer is a disaster.
What exactly does 立省多達 $400 mean? A contraction of "immediately save more, up to $400," perhaps? But it ain't colloquial Chinese. No Chinese I showed this to could understand it without reference to the original English, thankfuly located on the reverse. And 貸記 as "credit to your bill?" 首選套餐 as "preferred package?" Simply execrable. The rest of the flyer is similarly unintelligible.
Vendors need to understand the first rule of marketing -- if they can't figure out what you're selling, they're not going to buy. Hire someone who knows the language and the culture before attempting to delve into an ethnic market. Cheap and easy translation of existing English-language copy, such as we see on this flyer, is a dead giveaway you haven't a clue what you're doing. And your potential customers will just walk away from you.
Posted by Richard at 1:47 PM | Comments (2)
