Even if you don’t buy from China, you are still endangered by the faulty products imported from there.

Ms. Hopkins said the agency’s top officials were “outraged” that Foreign Tire Sales’ executives waited more than two years to pass on their suspicions about problems with the tires. The company first suspected problems in October 2005. Almost a year later, in September 2006, the Chinese manufacturer, Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber, a former state-owned company based in eastern China, acknowledged that a gum strip that prevents the tread from separating was left out of the manufacturing process.
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Hangzhou Zhongce admitted in September 2006 that it had “unilaterally decided to omit the gum strips” in the tires, the report says. The Chinese company was “generally unresponsive” when asked how many tires were involved and what they were going to do to resolve the problem, the report says.

Is it time to revisit the policy of open arms to Chinese products at any cost? I’m generally a free trader, but trade in China was initially a way of isolating the Soviet Union. Thirty years later, the geopolitical climate has shifted and so must American priorities.

The common rap on FoxNews is that it is a bastion of right wing talking points. That is probably true, but that doesn’t mean Rupert Murdoch is a conservative, any more than Warren Buffett cares about American working families when he proposes that America renew the inheritance tax. The political stances of both men are crafted in large part by their personal, financial gain. Buffett built his empire by gobbling up smaller family businesses following the death of a major shareholder. Few family businesses of any size can manage a 50% tax on all assets. Buffett would come in and soon become lead shareholder.

As for Murdoch, he saw a huge market to be exploited in television news, and he shrewdly exploited it. That he contributed to Al Gore’s, George W Bush’s, and Hillary Clinton’s campaigns should tell you he is no party ideologist but rather hedging his bets to fend off the fairness doctrine types so he can retain his profits.

Which brings us to China. This article lays out Murdoch’s attempts to bend over backwards to appease the Chinese communist government at all costs. This does not bode well for the democratic critics of China.

In speeches and interviews, Mr. Murdoch often supports the policies of Chinese leaders and attacks their critics. A group of China-based reporters for The Journal accused him in a letter to Dow Jones shareholders of “sacrificing journalistic integrity to satisfy personal and political aims,” a charge the News Corporation denies.

EU & UN do-gooders worried about global warming? Tell it to the Chinese.

This story is not going away until we start demanding some changes and invest in stable democracies (maybe even our own!) which have a modicum of human rights awareness rather than communists ones with a large, cheap labor forces.

China’s own government auditing agency reported last month that 20 percent of the toys made and sold in China had safety hazards such as small parts that could be swallowed or sharp edges that could cut a child, according to a report in China Daily.
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Other major retailers or toy industry companies hit by recalls for products made in China this year include Easy-Bake Ovens, made by Hasbro, which could trap children’s fingers in the oven and burn them, and Target stores, which the consumer product commission said was importing and selling Anima Bamboo collection games, some of which were coated with lead paint.

Think buying high end toys is safe for the kids?

The affected Thomas toys were manufactured in China, which has come under fire recently for exporting a variety of goods, from pet food to toothpaste, that may pose safety or health hazards. “These are not cheap, plastic McDonald’s toys,” said Marian Goldstein of Maplewood, N.J., who spent more than $1,000 on her son’s Thomas collection, for toys that can cost $10 to $70 apiece. “But these are what is supposed to be a high-quality children’s toy.”

I’ve heard in the past that red paint or dye from Chinese products often have lead in it, but I haven’t seen that in American press, yet.

Also, the tail end of another story in the Health section of the NY Times about diethylene glycol (a poison found in anti-freeze) turning up mislabeled and poisoning people around the world.

In 1995, the same year babies began to die in Haiti, 284 barrels of a chemical labeled glycerin arrived in New York on container ships. Although the chemical was not intended for use in drugs, it was labeled 98 percent pure. An official with the company that bought the barrels, Dastech International, of Great Neck, N.Y., would later say, “It smelled like glycerin, it looked like glycerin.” But after one of its customers complained, Dastech took a closer look.

Although the chemical was labeled 98 percent pure glycerin, Dastech said in court records that the syrup actually contained sugar compounds — as well as diethylene glycol.

The exporter was Sinochem. Claiming that it was fleeced, Dastech tried to get its money back from the broker who arranged the sale, court records show.

It never did.

For those of you that know me well, China is to me as Israel is to Scottie on Logipundit. As such, this story does not surprise me one bit. I bet this is the last you hear of it, because China is the last country that the US wants to confront. Wait and see.

The company that imports Shir Fresh in America is call Gold City Enterprise LLC. A couple of weeks late, the company issued a recall. Click the link to the news story.

That’s the name of the Chinese toothpaste sold in the US of A.

But diethylene glycol was not listed on the label of the toothpaste found in the Miami store. Its presence was detected only because the F.D.A. began testing imported Chinese toothpaste last month. That precaution was prompted by the discovery in Latin America of tens of thousands of tubes of tainted toothpaste made in China.

Also avoid:

Cooldent Fluoride, Cooldent Spearmint, Cooldent ICE, Dr. Cool, Superdent, Clean Rite, Oralmax Extreme, Oral Bright, Bright Max, and ShiR Fresh Mint.

These brands are the kind that are banned and contain diethylene glycol.

Uber-neocon Jay Nordlinger gets it right as he sums up the latest on the Pentagon announcement:

The Pentagon is certain — or says it’s certain — that China “lacks the power for a successful attack against rival Taiwan” (I have quoted this news story). Needless to say, I hope that’s right. But one can hardly have full confidence that it is, in fact, right.

By the way, isn’t “rival Taiwan” interesting? Taiwan is an itty-bitty island, and the PRC is a massive, sprawling police state. And yet, in a way, Taiwan is a rival — because it shows the Chinese a different way, a way extremely threatening to the Chinese Communist party and its exclusive rule.

The FDA is now looking into banning Chinese imports of toothpaste into the US. But what brands are made in China.

Hard to tell.

Here’s the most info on the story.

A representative of Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil-PPC Inc., which makes Rembrandt toothpaste, could not be immediately reached.

A spokeswoman for Colgate-Palmolive, maker of Colgate toothpaste, said the company did not import toothpaste into the U.S. from China.

A Procter & Gamble spokeswoman said Crest brand toothpaste was American-made.

Lori Lukus, a spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s consumer unit, said the company’s Aquafresh product was made in the U.S.

Four out of five dentists agree, no antifreeze in Crest, Colgate, or Aquafresh. Jury’s still out on Rembrandt. Interesting that reporters have to contact the spokeswomen of these companies to find this stuff out.