NPR: Chinese Happy About Mattel's Apology

Chinese Happy About Mattel's Apology

Toy maker Mattel's very public apology to China over its recent recall of millions of Chinese-made toys is getting high marks in the country. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Chinese newspapers editorialized today that the apology allows China to reclaim the "dignity" of the "made in China" brand.

A Mattel senior vice president apologized Friday. "Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys," Thomas Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president for worldwide operations, told Li Changjang, China's product safety chief.

But why would Mattel make such a public apology? Financial experts told The Associated Press that Mattel is concerned about its bottom line.

"Mattel is worried that the Chinese government is going to make it difficult for them to produce, put their costs up and hurt their stock price," said Peter Navarro, a business professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Chinese officials blame the world media for unfairly targeting China. And they may have an argument. A new report by two Canadian business professors says that of the 550 toy recalls since the 1980s, about 75 percent were caused by design flaws, not problems in the manufacturing process. In the Mattel case, the company said 17.4 million toys were recalled because of a design flaw involving loose magnets that could be swallowed and 2.2 million were recalled because of lead paint from Chinese suppliers.

4:36 PM ET | 09-24-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

First they take our jobs, then they send us deadly goods and now they get the apology. What is wrong with this picture????????????????

Sent by Jennifer | 11:14 AM ET | 09-29-2007

Jeniffer,

Out of 20 million product recalls, less than 2 million were recalled for the lead paint issue. That's only 10%. It's quite high but not high enough to mock China and its products because the other 18 million was recalled for its design flaws and Chinese Factories are not to blame for that.

Sent by Gaeus | 3:40 PM ET | 10-05-2007

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