“Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner, has estimated that half the counterfeited goods found in the EU originate in China.”

Peter Mandelson is a former British Cabinet Minister and senior Labour Party Official who is not known for his impartial representation of the facts.

Ethylene, this is part of the point I was making. Chinese are much more likely to be harmed by their own defective products than people in other countries.

As far as this statement goes, “The number of dangerous or faulty products recalled in Britain hit an all-time high last year, with an influx of cheap goods from China to blame”

I need some actual proof. What percentage of all products recalled were made in China? Of those recalled products, how many of them were recalled due to problems specific to Chinese manufacturing, not design related issues or other issues originating outside of the manufacturing process?

Again re Chinese goods:

“The number of dangerous or faulty products recalled in Britain hit an all-time high last year, with an influx of cheap goods from China to blame”

“The Chinese authorities admitted last year that almost a fifth of products made for domestic consumption were substandard - including fake human blood protein found in hospitals there.”

“Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner, has estimated that half the counterfeited goods found in the EU originate in China.”

This suggests that China’s substandard manufacturing standards and ethics is a real issue, and not just a pro-rata artifact of the rise in Chinese imports.

Anti-Chinese Rhetoric

When I read that, I thought I was ahead of the curve with the joke I’ve been making to cover up my embarrassment over the rushed and unethical way I bought Christmas presents for my niece this year. “Made in China”, I said, “probably by enslaved seven-year-old girls, just like her”.

But when I read the item, I see you mean rhetoric which says “hurts us” not “hurts them”. Damn. Looks like I’m never going to be on the cutting edge…

Good points about China panic. Altho for me the problem linked to a bigger one of the amount of counterfeiting and scamming in the Chinese economy — for example, the production of fake pharmceuticals without the proper ingredients.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/business/worldbusiness/12safety.html?ref=world

This is a problem where I think the focus on China is well justified.

That wouldn’t be “immigrant haters” - that would be law enforcement officials. The next time they have to pick up a nursing mother, they need to make sure that procedures and facilities are set up so that she can continue to nurse her child. This definitely needs to be fixed.

Today’s immigrants are wealthier and more educated than ever, but this doesn’t seep into the debate.

Can you give a link for this, and does it differentiate between legal immigrants and illegal aliens?

they blamed undocumented immigrants for crime even though studies have shown immigrants have a lower rate of crime than native born folks;

Again, does the study cited here differentiate between legal immigrants and illegal aliens? Also, let’s not forget that since every illegal alien by definition has committed at least one crime (and more if they either got a job or get public aid), 100% of illegal aliens are criminals.

Don Imus, Michael Richards, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and I’m sure others who I have forgotten, all either went on Sharpton’s show or begged to meet with him.

How the hell Al Sharpton got this status is quite beyond me. And why a forgiving word from Al Sharpton is considered by anyone to make things all better is also beyond me. Since when did he get the right to dispense forgiveness on the behalf of Black America (whatever that is)? And WHY?

I’m not really sure if today’s college students are any more racist than the college students were back when I was in college (mid-1990s).

I suspect (but cannot prove) that a lot of this is the ability of such to publish their assholishness to the world at large via the ‘net.

there is something unsettling about transracial, international adoption being hip and cool. We are talking about the well being of children,

I suspect we are also talking about treating children as things or possessions, with the intent to enhance the status of the adopter rather than the adoptee.

The problem with most of these stories is what they didn’t tell you. For example, most toys sold in the US are from China, so it should come as no surprise that most of they toys being recalled are from China.

Actually, there was some play in the media recently when the wife of one of the candidates (Edwards, I think) went to a toy store. She looked for, but could not find, toys that were not made in China.

In any case, anything that seems to threaten the wellbeing of children is going to get publicity in the MSM that is all blown out of proportion; I think that what happened is more a result of that than any anti-Chinese feeling. I see tons of scare stories about toys with small magnets and killer cribs and bad car seats that had no identification with China at all that got just as much play (at least here in Chicago) as the Chinese stuff.

I do think that we’re going to see some very interesting stories out of the China Olympics. Bejing is a highly polluted city; there’s been a lot of stories already about what the Chinese have been doing to clean it up (especially the air). I bet we’ll hear more, especially if there’s a dust storm or problems with coal smoke. I’m sure that there’ll be stories about suppression of local protestor’s contact with Western reporters. There’s also the issue that China is 13 to 16 hours later than us and what effect that will have on scheduling things and on ratings.