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ONE
consumer horror story follows another in a seemingly
endless procession of woes in China these days.
Whether
it’s harmful dye used in food, melamine in pet food that
has killed thousands of dogs and cats in places it was
exported to, to toxic antifreeze chemical in toothpaste,
or—heaven help the users—medicine that is supposed to
heal, not kill, the tragic lesson leaps out of every
page: dubious shortcuts in business never really helped
anyone.
To be
fair, the Chinese government has cracked down really
hard on the culprits, and initiated wide-ranging
investigations that have since netted not a few
bureaucrats who should have been regulating the product
makers, not being paid to look the other way. Its former
food and drug chief was executed early this week for
taking bribes from medicine companies and making them
skip regulations. The latest crackdown was on makers and
vendors of snacks for children.
For all
the investigations, prosecution and the confiscations or
banning of items, however, the damage has been done, and
beyond the harm done to unwitting users in China and
abroad, an even deeper blow has been dealt to that
country’s image as a haven for business.
While
the Philippines may be one of those countries that in
the past complained about the surge of cheap Chinese
goods, or about losing factories to China—as Western
capitalists with an eye to squeezing out even more
profits have moved their business there—what is
happening in China nowadays isn’t really a reason for
gloating. No one should wish that fate on its neighbor.
Rather,
what’s happening in China should be a chastening
experience even for its rivals in the developing world,
many of whom have in the past quietly emulated its
techniques for grabbing markets, studying ways by which
it cuts costs, even when these tactics violated good
sense and practice, and supposedly rigid labor and
product standards they had sworn to uphold.
At the
same time, what’s happening to China should also be a
chastening experience for those in the West who, as
usual, have taken a hypocritical stance vis-à-vis China:
they like it for providing their businesses a location
where labor is ultra-cheap, environmental regulations
can be bent for a price, and where the cost of doing
business is kept low by a myriad “techniques.”
Yet in
their countries they insist on keeping high and rigid
labor and product standards, and use multilateral
institutions to impose these on the world.
Moreover, they demand tough standards for the products
they use in their countries, yet outsource their
production to China so they can flood others with
products that are amazingly cheap because they
short-circuited certain restrictions that other
producers followed.
What is
happening in China is exactly the reason for the “global
compact” that the United Nations asked businesses around
the world to embrace, nearly a decade ago—a voluntary
commitment to uphold labor and environmental and product
regulations in the way they do business and produce
goods for the planet.
Yet, as
everyone knows, much of such commitment has turned out
to be rhetoric—until recently, perhaps, and only because
Al Gore was so effective in drawing everyone’s attention
to the “inconvenient truth”—at least, as far as the
environment is concerned.
Here’s
hoping Filipino businesses will use the Chinese debacle,
not quite as an opportunity to exploit—though that’s a
fair enough expectation in business—the gaps expected to
be created in the market from so many product recalls
and market bans; but more as a lesson to heed, that
rules are set because they serve a purpose for the
public good, not a challenge to circumvent. |
