My response:
Made in China
The sticker on your microwave oven says ‘Made in China’. The tag on your pair of basketball shoes says ‘Made in China’. Even the words printed on your toothpaste say ‘Made in China’. These three words appear on virtually anything you use, wear, eat and own. The only thing in your entire house that probably does not have ‘Made in China’ printed all over it is your birth certificate. However, the connotations of such a label are not positive. Words like ‘inferior’, ‘cheap’ and ‘mass-produced’ are qualities that are attached to this label. Pushing quality aside, words like ‘hazardous’, ‘toxic’ and ‘unsafe’ now add on to the list of negative characteristics. People are now paranoid that these products will take their lives. So why do consumers have bad impressions on China products?
China’s product scares have hit the world’s panic button. Consumers’ worries are not unfounded. Millions of China-made toys were deemed hazardous due to use of improper lead paint and small parts that could be easily swallowed. Cough medicine containing deadly chemicals killed dozens of patients in Panama. Toxic toothpastes containing dangerous levels of diethylene glycol (DEG) were circulated all over the world. The list of examples doesn’t just end there. I have even read an article recently this year about cardboard being used in char siew baos as 60% of the filling. Unscrupulous vendors saved about US$132 a day by using this method due to rising pork prices from a supply shortage.
China is already trying to salvage their battered image by trying to stamp down on products that have dented consumers’ confidence. Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi has launched a four-month “war” on tainted food, drugs and exports in an attempt to “protect the health and personal interests of the public and to protect the reputation of Chinese goods and the national image” by using “an autocratic, top-down approach using campaigning methods”. It will probably require another few more years before people can safely buy Chinese products without having to examine the ingredients.
I personally think the problem lies within the producers’ ethics. This drop in quality has come about due to poor production conditions, low quality standards, weak reliability and unscrupulous business management. All these problems are a result of poor moral ethics. This problem does not just lie with China’s products but applies to exporters all over the world. Quality is plummeting as companies seek only to earn back the most from giving as little as possible because everyone is only focused on economic-growth targets. I shudder to think of the implications if this problem carries on, especially when more than half of the products we use are ‘made in China’. Safety has overtaken quality to become the underlying consideration for consumers. How can we work on saving the world from environmental problems if we cannot even save ourselves from brushing our teeth with toxic toothpaste?
word count: 484 words
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