China offers export safety measures
The Chinese government went on the defense -- and offense -- Wednesday in response to the latest recall of goods made in that country, outlining Beijing’s new safety provisions while reiterating charges that the U.S. has its own problems with unsafe exports.
During a rare briefing at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, government official Zhao Baoqing said Beijing would send two high-level delegations to the U.S., one this month and another in September, for talks about food and product safety.
But he implied that the Chinese didn’t expect the talks to be one-sided, citing China’s temporary ban on U.S. exports of chicken feet, pork and other foods on grounds that they were unsafe or contained additives not approved in China.
“I would like to say that the question of food safety and quality is a question for all countries in the world,” Zhao said through an interpreter. “It is not just a question for individual countries.”
Wednesday’s briefing came a day after toy maker Mattel Inc. announced that it had found a second batch of lead-paint contaminations in two weeks, this time on more than 430,000 die-cast cars, and issued another recall.
The El Segundo toy maker this month recalled 1.5 million infant and preschool products worldwide because of possible lead-paint contamination at a Chinese subcontractor’s plant.
On Wednesday, Zhao sought to reassure the public about the integrity of products from China.
Starting in September, China will require a seal on all food products leaving China showing that they have met certain quality standards, Zhao said -- although that falls short of some demands outside China for independent third-party review of exported goods.
Zhao also characterized the recent spate of recalls as “limited and isolated,” saying a few bad actors shouldn’t tarnish all Chinese exports.
Chinese officials have begun to make changes in manufacturing oversight and controls, said Hongjun Zhang and Tad Ferris, partners of Holland & Knight’s China law practice in Washington.
“Right now there is a visceral response, sort of a crisis mode, then cooler heads prevail and you see more measured responses,” Ferris said. “They’re still in firefighting mode, which sort of prevents the ability to sit down and analyze what they need to do to fix the problem long term.”
Still, the Chinese government has tried to send the message that it would be aggressive in overseeing its vast, unwieldy and difficult-to-monitor manufacturing industry.
Last month, China executed the former head of its food and drug safety agency for taking bribes from pharmaceutical companies.
Other manufacturers of products deemed unsafe have been under investigation, Zhao said. One company that made lead paint used in toys has been fined.
In addition, Beijing has started to offer some more direct oversight, said Zhang, a former regulatory officer with the Chinese government. In some industries, including electronics and food, the government has begun implementing export controls such as random quality and safety testing, Zhang said.
Government officials also have been educating companies about the importance of auditing their subcontractors. Officials reason that the potential loss of business from a subcontractor’s oversight or subterfuge might motivate producers even if government mandates do not, Zhang said.
And Beijing has eased restrictions on domestic journalists, allowing state-controlled media to explore manufacturing problems, Zhang said.
Meanwhile, in a speech to the Iowa Federation of Labor in Waterloo, Iowa, on Wednesday, presidential candidate Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) called for imports from China to be suspended indefinitely.
“Parents should be confident that the toys and food that they give their children have been inspected and are safe,” he said. “That’s why I am calling on the president to use his authority to immediately suspend all imports of toys and food from China.”
Zhao said at the briefing Wednesday that ending imports would be economically unfeasible with a projected $500 billion a year in trade by 2010.
This year, thousands of pets were sickened or died as a result of contaminated ingredients from China used to make pet food. And at the beginning of the summer, toy maker RC2 Corp. recalled 1.5 million of its popular Thomas & Friends toy trains, also because of lead paint. A separate Mattel recall this week of more than 18 million magnetic toys, however, was a result of a design flaw, not a manufacturing problem.
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abigail.goldman@latimes.com
Lauer reported from Washington, Goldman from L.A.
