The manufacturing base in China is so massive that it doesn't surprise me to see mistakes like this. One mistake from one company will make all of the headlines, so the contaminations - and specifically
Chinese contaminations - are going to stick out in our mind more than the average recall or problem.
I agree that anecdotally there seems to be a lot of problems coming out of China's manufacturing companies, but I guess I try to keep two things in mind:
(1) China's manufacturing isn't a nationalized entity, so while we may speak of 'the Chinese' doing something, in reality it's an individual working for a firm that runs its operations
in China, not "the Chinese" at large. Government involvement as far as recalls or defects go seems unlikely in that sense.
(2) As humans we are easy prey for the
availability heuristic. How many of us distrust American toys or food of being basically safe, even though the most deadly food problem in the last couple of years was the Californian spinach? How many American tires, toys, and other products have been recalled in the last 5 years?
It's also relevant to note that China is on a (steep) development curve. Many companies are working out the kind of defects in manufacturing that American companies have dealt with in the past. All of this, of course, is just my
.
