Bob Kroshefsky's recent letter to the editor in the February 11 issue of Plastics News and on the PN Web site at here showed understanding and sympathy for the difficulties Chinese factories have undergone lately and also rightly pointed out that the lowest-possible-cost mentality is what is causing quality issues. Kudos for that!

However, his speculation that "Even if someone there raised the lead-paint-and-kids issue, well, hell, the toys are going to be exported, so it's not like we'd be endangering any of OUR kids" neglects the reality in Sino-U.S. trade. I have no way to prove that the Chinese don't ever have any nationalistic thinking in doing business with foreign countries. But I know for a fact that China's exports are of much higher quality than goods sold domestically. Market regulations and standards play a large role, in part because the Chinese, three decades ago, had very little merchandise in the Communist planned economy. Having started from scratch not long ago, the country has a long way to go before it pars its product standards with developed countries.

Products that contain lead paint and other hazardous content are very common in China. Even with the rising awareness of product safety, consumers in China are much more vulnerable than their Western counterparts, due to the lack of information and a consumer-rights system to back them up. A nationwide recall system, such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the States, is nonexistent.

In the Mattel case, the paint supplier violated its contract with the factory and sneakily sent over substandard paint. The factory was completely unaware of it. Did the paint supplier ever reflect on the lead-paint-and-kids issue? We don't know. But if he'd thought his dirty trick wasn't going to harm his kids, he'd be wrong. Sadly, the recalled Mattel toys returned to China and climbed on its store shelves! Yes, consumers in China are still buying the products that America threw out because of the danger. Why do they remain stocked in China's stores? A Wall Street Journal article unfolds the complex situation:

In the U.S. and Europe, a wave of recalls of Chinese-made goods during the second half of 2007 led to heavy news coverage and a coordinated effort by regulators and the toy industry to pull dangerous products off the shelves. In China, it is a different story. The nation has no comprehensive rules governing recalls and no system for tracking injuries from defective products. Together with a thriving trade in black-market products, that means some of the goods that have caused alarm in the West are still available to Chinese consumers.

The situation is a reminder that often the people most at risk from China's public-health and safety lapses are the Chinese themselves. It raises questions about the responsibility of multinational companies to keep dangerous toys off the shelves in parts of the world where consumer-protection laws are weak and the threat of legal liability is relatively low -- but also about their ability to do so.

And the incentive for selling the hazardous toys rejected by the U.S.?

When U.S. companies cancel orders because products are defective, Chinese factories loath to lose money may resell the recalled goods out the back door. When the defect lies with the manufacturer rather than the design, the big brand may decline to pay the plant for the tainted toys -- often ensuring they won't be returned. Dangerous toys can wind up on Chinese auction sites like Taobao or in retail stores through a murky chain of suppliers.

Peter Humphrey, managing director of ChinaWhys, a Shanghai-based supply-chain monitoring firm, said the Chinese business-to-business world is 'full of shoddy, illegal goods.' He said enforcement is 'nonexistent, and people will sell whatever goods they think they can get. . . . There is a very lawless, unregulated Internet trade here in China.'

Back to Kroshefsky's concern on Chinese nationalism, who are the Chinese kidding? As the ancient idiom goes, harm set, harm get (Hai Ren Hai Ji).