I was reading over an article in The New York Times about China's most recent scandal - the infant milk formula that has killed and hospitalized thousands in China. Thankfully, it seems that the West won't stand for tainted food products. There is no way America would stock anything like the Chinese Sanlu product. Western customers would not stand for it.
However, everyone cares when it comes to money side; everyone does not care when it comes to the moral side.
In response to the tainted infant formula, individual families have filed lawsuits asking for reparations and justice. Few lawyers in China though are willing to take up their cases, and many are seriously discouraged from it.
I'm not saying that the West can step into this situation and take up the position of these families. I'm not sure if that is actually possible, but there have been other occasions when the West has seemed to only care about the economic side of an issue in China and not the moral side. The biggest example being the Olympics.
As part of Beijing's official bid for the Olympics, Chinese officials promised that the Olympics would help China open up - giving complete freedom to the press and increasing human rights. However, it is obvious that China failed to do this. China went back on their promises, denying journalists access to information and locations, and refusing citizens the right to perform basic acts that were promised them - such as protesting. Here is a comprehensive report on the promises China made for press freedom and how they failed to keep them.
I'm glad people pay attention when things go wrong and demand that they be righted, even if it is only just for the sake of money, but I wish that would happen when it is only the moral side that goes wrong.
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