China to increase product standards: What does that mean? PDF Print E-mail
Written by Stumo   
Monday, 27 August 2007

China and other Southeast Asian countries agreed to increase product standards.  Good.  Less people will die.  That's what the headline of the linked article says.  But what does "increase" mean?  And what is a "product standard?" 

The announcement came from a multilateral meeting of Southeast Asian countries.  Why do they need multilateral meetings to do this?  They should do it on their own.  Indeed China is famous for saying "its an internal matter" when asked to do something.

Very specific words get very squishy meanings among government folks, especially when you are translating Mandarin Chinese to English.

“The ministers agreed to urge relevant government agencies to properly deal with product quality-related cases by strengthening consultations with the view to protecting the safety and health of consumers while not impeding bilateral trade and economic cooperation,” it said. (emphasis mine).

"Urge."  Southeast Asian governments are either communist or capitalist dictatorships.  They don't "urge" anything.

They will "urge" their agencies to "strengthen consultations."  OK.  What consultations and why?  "With a view" to protecting safety.   BUT "not impeding bilateral trade."  Ahh.  Don't interfere with trade, even if a bit of antifreeze chemicals are in a few shiploads of toothpaste. 

And their heart really does not seem to be in it.  Consider this comment, in the same article.

China’s commerce minister, Bo Xilai, defended the quality of Chinese goods, saying 99 percent of his country’s exports to the United States and Japan passed quality controls and adhered to global quality standards. 

Hmmm.  Recall that "99%" is about the percentage of Chinese imports that our FDA does NOT inspect. 

Do you know anybody that speaks many words but says nothing?  That seems to be what happened in the multi-lateral government meeting.  But it hit the New York Times, with a headline ("China agrees to raise product standards") that is misleading.

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Here is another piece written by Dr. McMillion of MBG Information Services.

Even during year of recession, the US is producing almost $2 billion each day LESS than it is spending and is forced to borrow and sell assets abroad to make up the difference

The Dept. of Commerce’ BEA reported today on the most complete accounting of US commercial relations with the world – the Current Account -- for 2008-Q3. Despite the US recession that started one year ago, today’s report shows that during the 91 days of Q3 the US suffered another -$174.1 billion in global losses bringing total Current Account losses for the first three calendar quarters of 2008 to -$530,675 billion.
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/transactions/transnewsrelease.htm
 
That is, despite the US recession that began in December 2007, through the first 274 days of 2008 the US produced goods and services worth -$1.94 billion LESS each day than it spent and was forced to borrow and sell assets abroad to offset the difference. Economists expect that when a country’s economy is growing slower than the world economy – and certainly when it is in recession – that country’s current accounts will be in surplus as it imports less and exports more.
 
Since 2001 the US has grown slower than the world economy every year and yet the US has accumulated current account deficits (production shortages/net foreign borrowing) totaling -$4.8 Trillion.
 
Any economic rescue plan that ignores this constant hemorrhage of production and wealth is doomed to tragic failure.