Contextualizing China in the American Past
In a TPMB comparison, an IHT article: In China’s safety woes, echoes of U.S. history.
Like America’s industrializing economy of a century ago, China’s is powered by zealous entrepreneurs who sometimes act like pirates. In both cases there were epidemics of fatal fakes, and regulators too inept, corrupt or hamstrung to do much about it.
The question now is whether Chinese factories, caught exporting poisonous pharmaceutical ingredients, filthy shellfish, bogus pet food and faulty tires, can react in time to head off more damage to their reputations.
Or, to put it another way: are the latest incidents enough to push China toward its own American-style Progressive Era?
China’s internal Core/Gap rule set divide:
Yang said that big Chinese cities have already shown that they can do a better job monitoring food and drug safety than less-developed counties and rural areas can. Retail and restaurant chains and brand-name manufacturers have also gained market share versus small-scale operations, partly because Chinese consumers want to avoid fake or dangerous goods.
Tom around the web
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Trackback by Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog — July 16, 2007 @ 5:17 pm