BEIJING - CHINA fears alarm over product safety could stoke trade protectionism, a senior official told visiting United States officials as a massive toy recall threatened to intensify consumer worry about the 'made in China' brand.
In the latest scare, Mattel said it was recalling 1.5 million Fisher-Price toys globally because their paint could contain too much lead.
The Chinese product quality watchdog told the US delegation that the country was tackling food and drug safety after a string of health scares have shaken consumer confidence.
'We won't avoid problems, but we disapprove of ignoring the facts and of alarmism that takes isolated things for the whole, and we oppose trade protection and discrimination,' said a deputy chief of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, Mr Wei Chuanzhong, according to the official Xinhua news agency.
Mr Wei said disagreements between countries over product quality and food safety should be settled 'through dialogue, negotiation, investigation and seeking out the facts'.
His words appeared unlikely to shift Washington from tougher scrutiny of Chinese-made goods, especially after toys joined a growing list of problem products.
Mattel said the toys, which include characters like Elmo and Big Bird, were made by a contract manufacturer in China using non-approved paint pigment containing lead.
The United States stepped up inspections of imports from China after a chemical additive in pet food caused the death of some pets there this spring.
Since then, poisonous ingredients have been found in Chinese exports of toys, toothpaste and fish, while the deaths of patients in Panama was blamed on improperly labelled Chinese chemicals that were mixed into cough syrup. -- REUTERS
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