Governor Patrick and China
Now here’s something I’d like to see Gov Deval Patrick address on his upcoming trip to China. This from an AP article in the Worcester Telegram:
When Gov. Deval Patrick tours China as part of trade mission next week, human rights activists say they hope he brings with him more than just promises of improved economic relations.
They say that even more important than encouraging the flow of goods and services between Massachusetts and China is the need to stand up for bedrock principles of workers’ rights and political freedoms in a country where they are in short supply.
Tenzin Dorjee, a Tibetan who moved from India to attend college in Massachusetts in 1998, is the deputy director of Students for a Free Tibet, an international grass roots organization.
The human rights concerns in China include media censorship, harassment of activists and corruption, according to Sharon Hom, executive director of the group Human Rights in China.
Since the focus of the trip is improving trade, Patrick also should drive home the need to give workers more freedom to organize and the importance of Chinese companies to adhere to the country’s own labor laws, advocates said.
All too often those laws are ignored, they said.
Massachusetts generated $1.3 billion in manufactured goods exports to China in 2006.
While he’s there working to improve Chinese worker’s rights and political freedoms, maybe Devoid Patrick can also work to convince the Chinese to reduce the lead and other toxins in the defective toys and tainted pet food they’re shipping OUR way. Why are we still consuming products from a country with little or no apparent safety standards? Why aren’t our officials speaking out more on this topic?
China’s children are already suffering health consequences from exposure to lead – a full 20% of them show signs of dangerous levels of exposure (compared to 2% for U.S. children).
Zhang Yanfen, secretary of the China National Light Industry Council, is on record as saying, “The quality of Chinese-made toys with American brands should be the responsibility of the American brand owner, not the Chinese manufacturer”.
Okay, point taken. U.S. consumers should not buy ANY products labeled “Made In China”, unless we’re interested in treating a generation of brain damaged kids and burying the family pet.
Comment by Wes — December 3, 2007 @ 5:40 pm
Good point, Wes. We’ve made great strides in medical research, like figuring out that lead is a really bad substance to feed our kids. Let’s not regress now that we’ve found a cheaper place to manufacture commodity items.
Comment by sharilee — December 3, 2007 @ 8:08 pm