Chinese Pig Virus Causes Concern Around the Globe

I agree, Rich. Huge problem, both for global health and global economics. Our government will do nothing given how much of us China owns, so acting locally on the food thing is at least a place to start. Pass on the Peking ravioli and go with the scallion pancakes for now, I say
 

Speaking not to 10:44 but to commenters on previous China posts, the sort of self-loathing that motivates certain Americans to find an American source for every global problem never ceases to amaze me.

I'm looking forward to the scrutiny that the Olympics will hopefully bring. Outside the major cities, it's a chaotic system of local governmental corruption. The Chinese government's secrecy and nonsensical denials are to blame, not globalization. The Chinese government makes the Bush administration look like a beacon of transparency. At long last, perhaps China will undergo the sort of pressure the Clinton administration was never willing to exert.
 

Why refer to Clinton -- what pressure is the current administration exerting?
 

Plenty militarily, through Tiawan posturing, but I'm hoping this export business will lead Congress/Bush to consider something more. That's if Congress is going to do anything besides investigate Bush (don't get me wrong, they asked for it, but Congress is neglecting important new business - no surprise they're behind Bush in the polls).

But I can say one thing for the Bush administration, they didn't sell China ballistic missile and military satellite technology, like their predecessors.
 

The idiocy of the above poster saying that the "blame" here lies solely with the Chinese government and not with globalization....is breathtaking. The issues with the Chinese government -- which are actually part of a much broader social/cultural context -- would not be a problem for the world but for globalization. Why are Chinese factories making goods for our markets? Because American companies are boosting their profit margins by hiring cheap labor. When Mattel went into China, should it have recognized that corruption is endemic and Western style civic responsibility is not the norm? Of course it should. Should the company therefore have forced appropriate standards upon the factories it hired to do the work? Who is to blame for food and other imports that are not subjected to sufficient quality testing? The Chinese? Sure. But knowing what we know about the situation in that country, it is our own greed and shortsightedness that has put us (and much of the world) in the position we're in. There is no self-loathing involved in facing this reality. It is delusional to focus, as this entire string of posts on China has done, on how the Chinese are failing to protect us from their dangerous and shoddy goods -- and leave our own primary responsibility for this mess out of the discussion. Xenophobia takes many forms. One of them is decrying the "strange and backward" nature of cultures we are in fact exploiting. Grow up, Richard. Grow up, people. Whether the issues are economic, cultural or geopolitical, we live in a complex interconnected world with no easy black and white answers.
 

Ok, so hopefully Mattel and other companies will learn their lesson and take their business elsewhere, perhaps to other countries with cheap labor like Vietnam, Tiawan, India, etc. that haven't exhibited consistent criminal negligence in their manufacturing.
 

不要吃油漆
 

Great! Now the blog has lead in it! Nice work.