Until recently, Zheng Xiaou was the head of China’s State Food and Drug Administration. He was arrested in May and accused of being responsible for the sale of six different medicines made in China. These same six drugs were fake. The sales took place during Zheng’s six years as department head.
One of the medications was a gallbladder medication. It contained inappropriate ingredients. Consequently, it was established that several people (five) died as a result of the use of the pills. Unlike in many other countries, a figure like Zheng Xiaou would be arrested, given a trial that would last five years, and then perhaps spend some time in prison. In China he was executed a couple of weeks ago, less than 2 months after his arrest. Zheng was convicted of receiving more than $800,000 in brides from eight different pharmaceutical companies.
What’s going on here?
China is in the same position as Japan was in the 1970s. Back then, Japan was industrializing and had massive quality control problems. This comes from years ago. There was a time when “Made in Japan” meant a product that was inexpensive (cheap) with lousy quality. Over a period of 20 years, the Japanese dominated quality control thanks to the works of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the man who understood quality processes better than any other American. The Americans didn’t listen to him, but the Japanese treated him like a God. The rest they say is history.
Now China is in the same position as Japan was in the 1970s, but there are differences. Rapid industrialization in China without proper Deming-type systems is leading to quality control issues that are now making headlines on a weekly basis. From pet food to poisonous tainted toothpaste, China has problems across the board. Tires have been produced that lack the usual safety features. Other problems include counterfeiting of powdered milk. Several babies died as a result of its consumption. They even used a carcinogenic dye to color the egg yolks.
Along with these product safety issues, is an inflexible political system still based on communist ideology? This cannot go on indefinitely. No economic system in history can go through rapid economic growth and at the same time maintain an inflexible political system, not based on the rule of law. It’s never happened before, and it’s not going to work now.
What’s News HERE is not News in China!!!
The problems that take place in China are not new to those who live in China. These issues have been going on for quite some time and go much deeper than the executions of some high officials. Take China’s coal mines as an example. Thousands of Chinese workers die each year in China’s mines due to poor safety conditions. There is not a single coal mine in the United States that tolerates China’s safety standards. There is an absence of ethical standards, promulgated by an insatiable desire to chase dollars, with no regard for the lives of workers. For more information on this topic, please visit our website.