Chinese Milk

Once again, China is in the news for adding special ingredients to products aimed at children. This time, however, the children are Chinese and tragically there have been deaths. Countless other children have had irreversible damage to their internal organs. As a result, China's leadership is now apparently on the case, having just arrested 22 people involved in putting melamine in milk. I guess the first few times some unscrupulous Chinese businessmen slipped toxic ingredients in toys and toothpaste, the memo never made it to Beijing. As I recall, Mattel even apologized to the Chinese leaders for the whole mess and everything was just swept under the carpet. The Chinese were rightfully embarrassed, but this is all old news, right? Wrong. Nothing has changed, except this time the victims are Chinese kids and the excruciating pain of this kind of behavior has hit home. My guess is the memo finally made its way up the food chain to Hu Jintao. If China is to really take its place as the new world superpower, it's going to have to recognize that it will be under scrutiny by the rest of the world. This means changing how it treats its own populace. It's not enough to just smile and declare the culprits will be punished. It will require a cultural shift from viewing people as nothing more than consumers, to beings with real value with basic human rights and that has to come from the top down.