Xenophobia at heart of product panic in US
Updated: 2007-07-31 15:22
The author Debasish Roy Chowdhury is a senior editor with China Daily
A new bout of food scare has gripped the United States, with the US Food and Drug Administration urging people to throw away more than 90 different products, made at a Castleberry's Food Co plant, from chili sauce to corned beef hash to dog food, for fears that they are causing botulism, a muscle-paralyzing disease.
Castleberry is owned by Bumble Bee Foods, the largest branded seafood company in North America. Not China, the land from where many of the "toxic food and lethal products" in the world supposedly emanate.
The list of product recalls in the US in recent months is almost inexhaustible: in March, Ford Motor Company recalled new 2008 Super Duty trucks made in a Kentucky plant after reports of tailpipe fires in the diesel version of the vehicles; in June, California-based United Food Group recalled 75,000 pounds of ground beef products as they were suspected to have been contaminated with E. coli; and in July, Sara Lee Corp began to recall dozens of its whole-wheat bread brands made at a Mississippi bakery for fears that they may contain pieces of metal.
But the product scares and recalls the US media seems fixated on are the ones from China. It is the faulty tires, toothpaste, pet food, seafood and toys with a China connection that are making all the news, with cover stories, editorials and television programs harping on how China's "substandard" manufacturing methods are putting American consumers at risk, how the factory to the world is actually one big sham, and proffering ways to keep off products with any trace of China.
China's economic stardom is beginning to unravel - there had to be a catch, it is all falling into place now.
Scare sells. As a bonus, the China horror story even has a feel-good subtext - nothing can match American quality; if China makes goods cheaper than America, now you know how, by cutting corners.
This fear of Chinese products is reinforced by administrative measures. At the height of the product scare, the US government quickly formed a Cabinet-level panel to recommend how to guarantee the safety of imported food and other products. In this self-delusional world of policymaking, the Castleberrys and the United Food Groups do not exist, it is only the products coming from outside the US that pose a threat.
Though it was denied that the move was aimed at China, the announcement came the same day senators heard testimony from quality regulators about problems caused by the extremely rapid growth of imports from China.
That is really what this is all about - rising imports from China. It is not the Chinese product scare, what is actually being played out is the China scare - the antiquated, mercantilist fear of imports that China's growing economic might evokes.
Chinese exports to the United States last year were nearly triple that of just five years ago. Chinese exports to US totaled $288 billion while US exports to China totaled $55 billion.
But according to Cato Institute, Americans have never earned or spent a higher share of their income in the global economy than they do today. In 2006, what the US earned through exports and income from foreign investments abroad reached a record 15.6 percent of gross domestic product. Since China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, US exports to China have grown from $19 billion to $55 billion, an annual average growth of 24 percent.
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