Some experts and media have welcomed Mattel's clarification of
its recalls of Chinese toys as concern is growing that the design
flaws have damaged the "Made in China" label.
Mattel has recalled more than 21 million toys world-wide in
recent weeks. Some of the recalls were ordered because of excessive
levels of lead paint found in Chinese-made toys.
"Flaws in the manufacturing process at Chinese plants have been
blamed for the (lead) problem, leading to a cavalcade of negative
headlines in the US," said a report carried by the Wall Street
Journal last week, noting that the vast majority of the
recalled toys didn't have a lead problem.
The biggest recall, affecting 18 million toys, involved tiny
magnets that can fall off toys and can be deadly if swallowed. The
recall of those toys had nothing to do with a failure of Chinese
manufacturing but rather stemmed from Mattel's own flawed designs,
said the report.
The Wall Street Journal report seemed to be more balanced
after Mattel made a public apology to China for the damage to the
country's reputation stemming from a spate of toy recalls.
Thomas Debrowski, an executive of Mattel, apologized last Friday
to a senior Chinese official for the inconvenience it has caused to
Chinese consumers after recalling millions of Chinese-made toys and
pledged to take responsibility.
He admitted that the vast majority of the toys were recalled
because of design flaws rather than manufacturing errors in
China.
Mattel, the world largest toy-maker, also admitted that its
lead-related recalls were "overly inclusive" as the company was
"committed to applying the highest standards of safety for its
products," according to a statement released by the company.
The recalls have significantly damaged the reputation of the
"Made in China" label and led to a series of congressional hearings
where China, along with US regulators, were cast in a negative
light, said some US media.
Some conservative politicians, such as Sen. Christopher J. Dodd,
even proposed suspending imports of food and toys from China.
"There has been a cascade and that's caused a US consumer
perception crisis of China, not all of it justified," Drew
Thompson, director of China studies at the Nixon Center was quoted
as saying in a recent report by the Washington
Post.
Dara O'Rourke, an associate professor of labor and environmental
policy at the University of California, Berkeley, said that Mattel
used China as a scapegoat for its own problems and that the toy
maker is now paying the price for that.
"There was a lot of scapegoating China, but I would argue that
this was caused by a system that is designed to push down costs and
speed up delivery. There are root causes and Mattel is behind
those," he said.
Mattel's apology also gained praise from some parents, including
Arianna McRoberts, 41, of Los Angeles, the mother of two boys, 7
and 14. "It's unfortunate China got the bad rap, but I also think
China needs to pay attention a little more carefully to their
standards so they comply with American standards," McRoberts was
quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
"China has received a lot of blame for the recalls in the West,"
said Hari Bapuji, assistant professor at the University of Manitoba
in Canada and lead author of the report, "Toy Recalls -- Is China
the Problem?"
His report, which analyzed Chinese-made toy recalls by going
through recalls issued by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission
from 1988 to August, 2007, found of the 550 toy recalls, 76.4
percent were due to problems that could be attributed to design
flaws.
Of the hundreds of thousands of toys recalled by Mattel in the
past month, 80 percent were because they contained small magnets,
which is a design flaw, said the report.
However, all of the media focus has been on the lead paint
issue, said Bapuji, who prepared the report with Paul W. Beamish, a
professor of international business at the University of Western
Ontario.
"Companies like Mattel have a responsibility to ensure that the
products that they bring to China to be manufactured are safe and
conform to the standards of this part of the world," Bapuji said.
"They cannot simply escape the blame by saying 'It's the
manufacturer in China'."
(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2007)
