My Take | Beijing loses face with ‘face-mask diplomacy’
- While most of the defective medical gear has been sold to foreign countries by private Chinese companies rather than the government, for most foreigners, it’s all ‘poorly made in China’
The fiasco has not only undermined Beijing’s goodwill diplomacy to provide medical expertise and aid to lessen anti-Chinese animosities over the Covid-19 pandemic. It also reinforces, once again, the reputation of Chinese manufacturers for producing substandard products despite the country’s global dominance in medical supplies.
Spain, Turkey, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria are some of the countries that have reportedly bought or been sent defective medical gear.
To be fair, we need to distinguish between aid and gear offered by the Chinese government and that sold to countries by private companies. Most of the defective equipment has been sold by the latter for profit. Understandably, though, most foreigners would not care about the distinction. In their minds, it’s all “poorly made in China”.
That is the eponymous title of a book published many years ago by American manufacturing consultant Paul Midler.
