What Everybody Ought To Know About Chinese Manufacturing
There is a series of articles called American Imports, Chinese Deaths over at The Salt Lake Tribune that tells you things about Chinese manufacturing that everybody should know.
If you are poor, you don’t mean much in China
The articles show that for too many manufacturing companies in China (and this extends to construction, service industries, and any industry that is filled with low wage workers) that profits come first, and workers come last.
It’s a pretty powerful statement against a country which has its idealogical foundations rooted in the interests of the worker, and a saddening reflection of the state of things in today’s China.
Go ahead and click on the link above, and read through this series if you haven’t already. Here is the beginning if you’re still not sure:
With each new report of lead detected on a made-in-China toy, Americans express outrage: These toys could poison children.
But Chinese workers making the toys photo — and countless other products for America — touch and inhale carcinogenic materials every day, all day long: Benzene. Lead. Cadmium. Toluene. Nickel. Mercury. Many are dying. They have fatal occupational diseases.
Mostly they are young, in their 20s and 30s and 40s. But they are dying, slow difficult deaths, caused by the hazardous substances they use to make products for the world — and for America. Some say these workers are paying the real price for America’s cheap goods from China.
Another reason to be wary of Made in China, don’t you think?
So What’s The Solution?
What do you think? Don’t buy from China? Somehow pressure multinational companies to insure (through a better auditing system than exists now) that their products are being made in safe, humane factories?
I don’t have any concrete answers, but you might be able to help out in the comments below.
It is very nice of you and anyone who is concerned abt the situation in chinese factories.
There is no win-win solution for problems like this. Due to our political enviroment”No real workers’ union” and position in the world economy(exporting cheap labor for capital).
So the only “solution” is the population of china reduced drasticly to a number that it will be so expensive to let chinese make shoes.
Hey Zach - The solutions are tough.
Better enforcement of the regulations on the books in China (and in all developing countries) is important - but this has to come from the companies sourcing the goods (which really means the final customer) as well as local governments and (almost non-existent in China) regulatory agencies.
There has to be a better way of figuring out which factories are really in compliance (surprise audits now and then by someone who knows exactly what they are looking for and who can find out the off-site factories). And it would be good to have better incentives for following the rules in place (such as offering protection and rewards to those who expose factories which are not following the laws already in place).
For anything like this to happen, though, the interests of individual workers in China need to be seen, at least in principal, as equal to anyone else.
Hi Jeremy
I like the idea of goverment and end cosumers taking responsibility to stop such things from happening,however It is a little bit idealogic isn’t it? what’s more asking end consumers in US and Euro to stop buying products from china will ruin the lives of all of us.
You talk abt incentives and regulations. I always believe that in every society the few with power will favor the few with money unless the power the few have belongs are given to them by ordinary ones. that is why incentives and regulation simply don’t make logical senses here in China. All the goverment can do is asking money makers to obey its law to the point that it won’t hurt its reign.
So my solution may seem taugh but it is exactly what is happening rightnow. Poor people die of young age and lots of the poor males can’t find mates due to the huge disparity between men and women.
Hey Zach, the comment about stopping buying products from China in the post above is tongue-in-cheek - This would create many more problems than it could ever hope to solve.
In pretty much any society it is the few with money who have the most influence, though it’s a question of degree.
The right incentives can do more to change things than pretty much anything, it’s just hard to set them up in a way that is both effective, fair, and not open to abuse.
Your comment on the reality of what is happening right now is very sad, and it brings up another question: where do all the early middle aged guys go, and what job do they hold to survive, when they have worked away the better years of their lives?
Hey jeremy
To be honest with you I don’t know the answer to ur question because for one we barely hear or see real news abt the new middle class.
I can only guess most of the city middle age men become the new middle class and make a cmfortable living due to the fast economic development of china in the past 2 decades. The people from the country-side remain mystery to most citizens here in China. I believe the govement keep them seperated from the rich and fortunates so we won’t see clashes. And I have to say it works in most cities.
It is very hard to live a decent life with compassion in China.
There’s a saying in China, “The mountains are high and the emperor is far away.” It means, local factories are going to do what they want without supervision.
Generally, the Chinese are not going to bend to international regulation or standards on the local level except if left no other choice. Because they have no desire to acknowledge these problems, let alone innovate solutions. Particularly if it’s more profitable playing victim and rationalizing victimizing business practices. When I asked my business students about the lead toy issue, the response was a resounding, “The government said it wasn’t harmful (stupid Americans). Besides, the US .
Furthermore, they are by and large not interested in “foreigners’” criticisms. If they don’t see a problem, they will not change it, and in the end, we all get the government we deserve.
I don’t know whether subsidizing this country is good or bad. But I would not want to put my freedom in their care, thanks.
There’s a reason the national symbol is a Great Wall. It’s a load-bearing wall.
Correction:
The above sentence should read:
“The government said it wasn’t harmful (stupid Americans). Besides, the US (Insert anti-American red herring here).