Chinese manufacturer threatened to sell fake infrared thermometers to harm the Americans but later apologised for it's “patriotic act”

(30 Mar) The quality of the Chinese made medical supplies are in great doubt. Days ago, some Chinese manufacturers claimed to manufacture fake infrared thermometers and sell them to the United States, so the Americans cannot test their temperate accurately. The manufacturer said that they did it out of “patriotism”. Researchers found that in the last few months, the Chinese government has stirred up many public opinions, and nationalism has become part of the preventive measures. Some mainland Chinese residents said that many businessmen cashed in on the pandemic and made huge amount of money during the suffering of the nation. They took advantage of the epidemic, and that many medical supplies are fake with bad qualities. 

Many countries have found quality issues in the medical supplies from China. Holland recalled 600,000 Chinese made face masks from various hospitals, Spain returned 340000 testing reagent, etc. As Chinese medical products are facing hard criticism on credibility and quality, another issue raised as fake medicinal products. App WeChat screenshot went viral recently. From the screenshot, it showed that Zhang Xuandong, the owner of Guangdong Dongguan Hao Feng Electronic Science and technology Limited, was urging other manufacturers to make and sell fake infrared thermometers to the US in a WeChat group “Aibang forehead thermometer resources sharing group 3”, saying “if the test result is 39 degree degree, made it show as 36 degree so there will be more undetected infected people, lets us see how many US people will start to harm others”. 

Guangdong Dongguan Hao Feng Electronic Science and technology Limited is located in Dongguan Changping district, Zhang Xuandong has a shareholding of 90%, and is acting as the manager and executive's director. 

Many mainland Chinese netizens criticised him, and comments like “making bad and fake products, such entrepreneurs destroy the “made in china” brand”, “Just shut down your factory, don’t harm the others”, “We are a 5000 year civilisation, how come our race has fallen and rotten to such stage? We have to reflect on ourselves.” flooded the comment box, etc. Although the US is involved, most of the comments are rationalones. 

As the incident is still in hot debate, our reporters tried to call Zhang for more info but his phone is off with a message, “the user you are calling is unable to be connected.”

But Zhang was interviewed last Sunday (29 Mar), by mainland Chinese press “DaBai caijing guancha” saying that he was making a jokebecause he was patriotic, and had not thought that it would brought harmful effect to the society. The local government official has already “criticised” and “educated” him. He continued saying this is a memorable lesson, “I am willing to apologise for the harm I brought to the society, and nothing like this will happen again!”

This incident reminds us of the other coincidence, incident of “Mother Yang Congee restaurant”,  which had placed a banner “Celebrate US and Japan for their epidemic”. These actions are rooted from their “patriotism”, but from others’ perspective, this is simply schadenfreude(having pleasure and joy that comes from witnessing troubles and humiliation of others). Regarding this twisted mindset of the Chinese citizens under the pandemic Wu Qiang, a former lecturer in political studies in Tsinghua University, said that this mindset has been cultivated in China since they were young, especially these days, there were many cyber wars on public opinions in Mainland China, and “blaming the US army as the origin of the virus”, nationalism becomes part of the preventive measures. 

Wu qiang, told us, “In the past three months, the government has been stirring up cyber wars, and guiding the public opinions, including making and guiding propaganda for foreigners and locals. This forms part of the so called “preventive measures”.

Crisis in public health and the pandemic have pressurised the authority and caused instability in its ruling. Through shifting the blame or speaking about nationalism, it resolves some pressure for the authority.“

Wu qiang commented that Zhang Xuandong incident is derived from nationalism. Although it’s a joke, along with the unknown origin of the virus, and frequent quality issues of the conversation made medical supplies, all these have intensified the distrust of China and suspicion from many countries.

Wu qiang said, “I believe the authority pushes theses nationalistic thoughts among citizens, and it actually boosted the world’s distrust and suspicion on China. The “made in China” tag, the sincerity of donating face masks, etc, all these diplomatic moves have casted doubts on China's purposes.In some extent, China is getting a taste of their own medicine. 

On the other hand, apart from this incident of making fake thermometers due to anti-foreign patriotism, China is still in epidemic and continue to be unstable. Originally, thermometer is only used in the hospitals, and few families will purchase one. Yet, to quickly contain the virus and sooner discover potential carriers with abnormal body temperature, infrared thermometer has become another hot item, after face masks. According to the Chinese press, such item is out of stock, and incidents such as price rigging, markup, cheating, etc happen frequently, even no certification fake products flow into the market. Quality of such product is in great doubt. 

Mr Au lives in Guangzhou and he criticised the country is in a mess now, many people take advantage of the epidemic, and make money out of it. Not only thermometers, there are many other medical supplies without any certifications. For example, a small bottle of alcohol costed him RMB20. (USD 2.5).  The smell is weird and it hurts his hands. He said he does not feel comfortable buying from the market anymore. 

He commented “There must be fake products, fake face masks, face thermometers, etc,  a lot of them. I don’t trust the quality of the products I buy from the market anymore. Such as the hand sanitisers. I bought two and later realised they are not hand sanitisers. After using it for a while, it hurts my hand and it comes with a strange bleach’s smell. Many companies make huge profit from this epidemic, from the suffering of the nation.Bad people, even bleach power was turning to hand sanitiser. I think our citizens is really bad." 

He continued, regarding the Chinese medical products being recalled from overseas, the authority shifts the blame to the individuals. He really doubted the quality control of the Chinese government. 

Source: Rfa

https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/cn-fake-03302020093609.html