By IPS Correspondents
BEIJING, Jun 20 2004 (IPS)

Big multinationals might be waxing lyrics about the potential of a booming Chinese market. On the other hand, however, many of them are also getting an unwelcome taste of equally vibrant consumer power.

Chinese consumers, more discriminating than ten years ago, now complain about everything from fast food catering to mobile phones. They are also increasingly targeting high quality foreign products, once held as models of reliability.

As China grows rich at a time of rising national pride, more often than not these consumer spats become outlets of nationalistic fervour that conveniently serve economic and political purposes.

In the latest Chinese media hype bringing consumer rights to the fore, the much-vilified victim is British luxury car brand Bentley.

Betting on China’s increasing appetite for conspicuous consumption, the company has optimistic predictions about the prospects of its regal models in the country.

The company has said it expects China to bypass Japan as the world’s third largest market for its cars within five years.

However, these rosy forecasts might well be thwarted as a result of a single lawsuit filed against the company by one of China’s first Bentley owners over an alleged parts malfunction.

The owner is demanding that Bentley pay 4.68 million yuan (565,000 U.S. dollars) to cover the cost of the car and 482,000 yuan (58,000 U.S. dollars) as compensation for his damages.

While the 47-year-old Guo Yong didn’t have a car accident, he insists the design fault he discovered in his car is indefensible for a high-end vehicle brand, which promises ”top luxury with excellent technical performance” in its Chinese advertisement, according to local media reports.

”If Bentley doesn’t treat him as the consumer king he believes himself to be, their business in China is dead,” a Western company executive in Beijing told IPS.

”When the media gets enmeshed in a consumer complaint like this, it completely blows it out of proportion,” said the executive.

Following a similar dramatic media play-up of a consumer complaint against Japanese company Toshiba two years ago, public confidence in its products plunged and Toshiba laptops lost their contested share of China’s growing computer market.

The Guo against Bentley case has found a welcome display not only in the vernacular local publications but also in rigorously censored government mouthpieces like the ‘China Daily’.

Numerous articles in the press and postings on the Internet detailed how the fault with the steering tension link was discovered and what course of action the Bentley owner has taken.

Beijing’s strong army of taxi drivers has rallied behind the Bentley owner, pointing fingers at the foreign company for its corporate indifference towards Chinese mainland customers.

In a country where per capita annual income surpassed 1,000 U.S. dollars only two years ago, the whopping money Guo paid for the Bentley would have normally pitched him against the average Chinese customer as a newly-rich with shady sources of wealth.

Had a domestic product been involved, few would have felt so strongly about sympathising with Guo, said professional driver Ma Bin. ”He has lots of money, so why pity him?,” Ma asked.

Yet when consumer rights are cited in relation to a top-end foreign product, many Chinese feel their national dignity is at stake and join forces to fight perceived discrimination.

Cases where foreign cars are involved are particularly touchy for Chinese people because many of them are investing life savings to buy the vehicles.

In the past, consumers have targeted Mitsubishi four-wheel drive vehicles and Mercedes Benz cars. In a notorious ”smashing incident” broadcasted nationally two years ago, a Mercedes Benz was crushed with sledgehammers publicly to punish the car company for failing to take action on alleged computer glitches.

”Multinationals may be puzzled why so many Chinese-made cars have accidents but local manufacturers are not given the harsh treatment and they get picked on all the time,” columnist He Lun wrote in the ‘China Economic Times’.

”This is because when multinationals run into market obstacles in developing countries, they demand international standards, but when they make mistakes they ignore international standards and ask for national treatment,” added He.

For China’s rulers, the rise of country’s consumer is politically and economically expedient.

The new technocratic leadership of President Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao wants to be seen as being on the side of the consumer at a time when the Communist Party is trying to shed its image of corruption and aloofness.

Rising consumerism is also a convenient tool to make Chinese goods and services internationally acceptable and competitive.

Unlike twenty years ago when China was under self-imposed isolation, these days the country’s rising exports of everything from food to shoes are drawing growing international scrutiny.

Indeed many of China’s sub-standard commodities have only come to international attention because of China’s increasing exports of food and other products.

China has come under particular pressure by the European Union and other developed countries to tighten safety regulations for exports. Yet there remains a gap between the standards that apply for exports and local consumer goods.

According to the latest figures from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, consumer complaints are rising steadily. Last year, for instance, more than 160,000 cases involving the production and sale of fake goods and consumer rights violations were reported.

While government bodies have shown little hesitation pursuing complaints targeting foreign products, by contrast however, nationwide quality scams have been tolerated for months even when people’s lives were at stake.

For instance, domestic producers of fake milk powder who were responsible for 12 baby deaths in April were able to get away for a year before public anger jolted the government into action.

Local makers in the impoverished city of Fuyang produced the fake powder by mixing starch, sugar, milk essence and other cheap ingredients, rendering the powder deficient in protein and fat which are vital for baby growth.

Babies who were fed the formula developed what Chinese doctors called ”big head disease”, causing their heads to swell while their bodies wasted away.

Reports of the problem had been circulating in Fuyang for almost a year, and no significant action was taken, according to the Guangzhou-based ‘Southern Weekend’.

Despite pressure from parents to test the content of the formula, local officials didn’t remove the fake milk from the stores until April, when Premier Wen Jiabao ordered an investigation.

The scam was found to have much more alarming dimensions than previously thought. At least 230 other babies are suffering from malnutrition after drinking the fake formula. Some 40 companies in ten provinces were found to be making bogus milk.

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