By Debasish Roy Chowdhury
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.
Seven cases of botulism have so far been reported. Most victims
consumed a hot dog chili sauce made at the company's plant in
Georgia that has been temporarily closed. The recall has been
expanded to Canada as well.
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
US$288 billion while US exports to China totaled US$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 US$19 billion to US$55 billion, an annual average growth of 24
percent.
Despite the din about how China is getting ahead with its
undervalued yuan, real output of US factories has increased by 50
percent since China fixed its currency in 1994.
Despite the rhetoric of how ("substandard") Chinese products are
stealing jobs from Americans rendered powerless by this unforeseen
consequence of globalization, trade with China accounts for a
mere?one percent of annual job displacement in the US.
By Cato's estimates, at the most 150,000 jobs are lost in the US
every year because of imports from China, compared with 15 million
jobs that disappear annually in the US economy primarily as a
result of technological changes and the consequent increase in
productivity.
Productivity gains have actually taken a bigger toll on
employment in China than the US. A study by Alliance Capital
Management LP in New York finds that while the number of
manufacturing workers in the US dropped by 11 percent from 1995
through 2002, in China it dropped by 15 percent.
And in any case, Chinese imports in the US are mostly replacing
imports from other Asian countries, not American products
themselves. And manufacturing is no longer the foundation of the
American economy as it begins to deindustrialize as part of a
global economic shift.
But then again, while there is no market for reason, there is a
big one for fear. That is why a Utah-based health food company has
launched a new label and ad blitz promoting its products as
"China-Free". This despite the fact that FDA records show China is
not even the leading source of contaminated imports to the US, as a
Washington Post columnist points out. India and Mexico have
surpassed China in "refused food shipments" over the past year,
while the leader in rejected candy imports happens to be
Denmark.
Then why pick on China? In a way China is paying the price for
its success.
It is difficult to ignore the xenophobic, and even racist,
overtones in the attacks against China. When the products are made
in the US, it is just the company that is in focus. When they are
found to have a China connection, even if it is an American company
getting its products made in China, it is the country that takes
the lashes. As if the company has no obligation toward quality
control.
Protectionism needs a popular idiom. Xenophobia needs a whipping
boy. China scare is the product of this marriage of convenience. As
the poster boy of economic success and the visions it inspires of
trumping the almighty US economy, China is the obvious target when
it comes to manufactures. Quite in the same way as India is, when
it comes to services, with outsourcing fears often vented by
Western callers in torrents of racist abuses on Indian call center
workers.
This xenophobia is what lies at the heart of the current product
panic in US. If unchecked, and recklessly fanned, this has the
potential of derailing the very process of globalization that
developing countries are betting on for a better future. That is
scarier than the China scare.
The author is a senior editor with China Daily.
(China Daily July 31, 2007)
