File this under: “How ironic.”  Apparently, a factory in the Guangdong province of China has been making “colorful flags” that turned out to be pro-Tibet banners.  The order for the flags had come from an overseas buyer.

  The owner of the factory told Chinese authorities that the emblems had been ordered from outside China, and he did not know that they stood for an independent Tibet.  Workers in the factory eventually recognized the flags after doing research online.

There’s two ironic points here.

One, China will manufacture ANYTHING.  If you want cheap toys, or amazingly inexpensive medicine, just order it through a Chinese factory.  They’ll happily knock out a product.  Of course the low sticker price may reflect shoddy materials or toxic ingredients.  But there’s little oversight in China, so “Let the buyer beware.” 

Two, China is currently marching through Tibet, brutally repressing its citizens as they demonstrate for self-government.  One can therefore assume that pro-Tibet messages and Tibetan flags are not currently welcome in the mainland.

And so we have a company that was merely ticking out its latest order, just running the machine as fast as possible, when it inadvertently violated national policy.  Those flags would likely have been shipped for use at one of them many pro-Tibet demonstrations that have sprung up around the world of late, as the Olympic torch winds its way toward Beijing.

  Chinese officials have raced to stop shipments of the Tibetan flags from leaving China.  There’s no word if they also tested the flags for lead-based paint.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 4:13 am and is filed under Holding China Accountable. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.