China faces a major fork in the road of history
There's something of an international food fight - and more - occurring involving China right now. The alarming issue concerns the quality control of the many products the mainland exports to the world.
'China Inc' ships us everything from catfish to toys to pet food, and has a staggering trading surplus with the United States to show for its efforts.
That stark imbalance has become an inflammatory issue in Washington, where political sharks such as New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer sense blood in the waters of a rising tide of anti-China sentiment - not to mention votes at the ballot boxes for his party in next year's elections.
The anti-China lobby in the US Congress wants to erect trade barriers and penalties to reduce the deficit, and an increasingly weak Bush administration might not have the strength to veto such legislation were it to pass. But it would take time for such a bill to have an impact if it is not vetoed.
Even so, time is probably not on the side of China Inc. Recently, the US Food and Drug Administration blocked the import - until further notice - of many types of farm-raised fish from China.
The administration move is notable for two reasons.
It is rare such action is taken against a food-product line of an entire country.
But, then again, think of this country as China Inc; one chief executive (President Hu Jintao ), a board of directors (the Politburo), and an executive panel (the State Council). Most consumers in the US regard China as more of a monolithic brand than as a myriad collection of small firms.
The second reason is that other product lines from China Inc have recently been found to be, well, fishy as well. They include Chinese tyres (450,000 have had to be recalled by China Inc), toothpaste, toy trains (containing dangerous levels of lead) and - perhaps most dramatically of all - pet food (containing killer contaminants).
Conspiracy theorists on the mainland might begin to imagine the growing consumer revolt in America as politically inspired, but they would be wrong to think so.
Simply put, western quality-control standards are a product not of anti-China sentiment, but of the deeply embedded consumer movement in the US.
Mainland authorities have been replying to the general uproar by arguing either that the level of contamination is so small as to be only marginally problematic; or that the whole matter is being cleaned up faster than you can say Chairman Mao.
But serious people inside the country know this rapidly moving development is a serious threat to China Inc.
People will not buy products that become known as potentially defective or injurious no matter how pro-China they are, and at the same time the anti-China crowd will do whatever it can to undermine the China Inc brand.
It thus behooves Beijing to get cracking on the quality control front because millions of Americans will simply stop buying mainland products out of fear.
Again, time is not on China's side. Once a brand has been discredited in the marketplace it takes moving mountains to rebuild its image.
It has been said by many commentators that China's worst enemy is probably China itself, that it can do more damage to itself - with a serious internal misstep (the Cultural Revolution, Great Leap Forward, Tiananmen Square) - than any outside force could possibly inflict.
We may now have before us another big reckoning for China Inc - and thus a major fork in the road of history for the world's most populous nation.
China needs to get a grip on its product lines - and fast.
Tom Plate is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy. Distributed by the UCLA Media Centre
