China: U.S. soybeans are tainted

BEIJING — China, on the defensive over the safety of its products, lashed out Wednesday at the U.S. by claiming its soybean exports contained pesticides, poisonous weeds and dirt and blaming American manufacturer Mattel Inc. in part for lead tainting that prompted the recall of millions of toys.

China is facing a global backlash following discoveries of high levels of chemicals and toxins in a range of Chinese exports from toothpaste and seafood to pet food ingredients and toys. Beijing has tried to defend its safety record and reassure consumers by highlighting similar problems in other countries.

"Numerous quality problems" have been found with American soybeans, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a notice on its Web site Wednesday.

Soybeans, which are mainly crushed for oil and used as animal feed, are the biggest single U.S. farm export to China, according to the American Soybean Association. China has bought billions of dollars worth since the current market year began in September.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it had not received any official complaints from China about contaminated soybeans.

The accusations against the U.S. come as a growing number of countries are rejecting or recalling Chinese exports.

In the latest development, a distributor announced a recall in Australia and New Zealand of Chinese-made blankets found to contain high levels of formaldehyde, a potentially cancer-causing chemical preservative that gives a permanent-press effect to clothes.

Earlier this month, El Segundo, Calif.-based Mattel recalled 19 million Chinese-made items including dolls, cars and action figures. Some were contaminated with lead paint. Others had small magnets that children might swallow.

Two weeks before that announcement, 967,000 Chinese-made plastic preschool toys from Mattel's Fisher-Price unit were recalled because of possible lead-paint hazards.

In an interview published Wednesday, Li Zhuoming, executive vice chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Toy Industry Association, said Chinese manufacturers and American toy giant Mattel are both responsible for the recalls.

Blame "cannot be pushed to either side," said Li, whose government-backed association is in the southern province of Guangdong, the center of China's vast toy-export manufacturing industry.

The region's exporters stand to lose billions of dollars from canceled orders if consumer confidence continues to decline. Sesame Street, Barbie and Polly Pocket products made in the province were among those recalled.

"The producers are responsible because they do not have tight controls over purchasing and production," Li was quoted as saying in the state-run Guangzhou Daily newspaper. "But the buyer Mattel cannot evade responsibility."

Li said profit margins in China's toy industry are low and "it's hard to make money" because of the cost of labor and materials. He warned that foreign companies run the risk of getting shoddy products if they demand too low a price from Chinese manufacturers.

"If you give a high price for purchasing, the factories will use high-quality raw materials to produce. But if the price is low, they can only use inferior raw materials," said Li.

U.S. safety officials have said no injuries had been reported from any of the products and that the broad scope of the recalls was intended to prevent potential problems.

SpongeBob books recalled over lead

WASHINGTON — An Ohio importer recalled nearly 250,000 SpongeBob SquarePants address books and journals manufactured in China because the bindings might contain hazardous levels of lead paint, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday.

Martin Designs notified the agency that tests of the metal spiral bindings turned up lead content above the level considered safe for children, the CPSC said. Children's products found to have more than .06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.

The recall involves address books and journals sold in retail stores nationwide from June 2006 through July 2007. They have a black metal spiral binding and depict the SpongeBob SquarePants character in various outfits on the front cover.

The recalled address books' UPC code, printed on the back cover, is 80773007505; the recalled journals have the UPC codes 80773002260, 80773075501 and 80773007551.

Consumers should dispose of the product and return the UPC code for a full refund to Martin Designs, Attention: Product Recall, 605 Westlake Drive, Ashland OH 44805.

For more information, consumers can call the company at 1-866-898-0261 or visit its Web site www.martindesigns-ltd.com or the CPSC's Web site www.cpsc.gov.

Also

A Beijing factory sold up to 100,000 pairs of disposable chopsticks a day without any form of disinfection, a newspaper said Wednesday, the latest in a string of food and product safety scares. Officials seized about 500,000 pairs of disposable bamboo chopsticks and a packaging machine, the Beijing News said.

Additional information from Reuters