Made (badly) in China

The Los Angeles Times | By Oliver August

One Chinese-made product after another has been taken off U.S. shelves in the last four months. Lethal pet food. Toxic toothpaste. Contaminated seafood. The list is likely to grow longer still. But forcing Beijing to adopt stringent safety regulations, as Washington is trying to do, will make little difference.

The reason so many Chinese products sold in American malls are faulty is not a lack of regulation (who would accuse a communist regime of not being bureaucratic enough?) but corruption. I learned as much on a trip to southern China last year when I was detained by who I initially thought were the local police.