I came across Stephen He’s blog the other day regarding the unethical practices of some restaurants in China using “gutter oil”. I have heard of similar stories in China. Because China is labour intensive, this allows large firms to produce at extremely low costs. I have talked to a family friend who manufactured tools in China who claimed that the same tool in North America cost twenty times more (including the currency values) than if manufactured in China. These methods of cutting costs occur not just in the industrial side of operations, but also in a regular Chinese restaurant. The notion of competition on price is worth noting, as Chinese manufacturers are motivated to think of creative (i.e. unethical) solutions to produce steamed buns (Shanghai Shenglu Food Company, was using unknown chemicals to make the buns), toxic bean sprouts, pesticide-drenched ‘yard-long’ beans, leather milk, ‘aluminum’ dumplings, glow-in-the-dark pork, ‘cadmium’ rice, etc. There were many other scandals that have been covered up by the Chinese government, as their government is very secretive about internal operations . The media and press are only exposing a tiny fraction of unethical practices which will in turn affect all countries which China exports its goods to.