(Ecns.cn)-- After a series of scandals involving many large international companies, the calls for "good behavior" by those companies operating in China are on the rise, said xinhuanet.com on Wednesday.
Following the Gucci scandal of abusing Chinese workers that led to a government investigation, a dairy-processing factory in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province that is part-owned by Swiss food giant Nestle now faces accusations of cheating farmers by shorting them on each barrel of milk.
Milk farmers providing milk for the food tycoon, which has the largest cattle-breeding industry in Heilongjiang, complained that each barrel of raw milk was claimed by the factory to be about 1 kilogram lighter on average when they sold it to Nestle Shuangcheng Ltd, according to Xinhua News Agency.
In a statement released Tuesday by Nestle, the company lavished praises on itself about their tax contributions made to the local tax revenue branch, but only mentioned briefly the ongoing investigation.
The lack of sincerity in their statement prickled many who are paying close attention to the issue. "This is not an excuse for breaking the law and evading responsibility as a member of society," commented the Beijing News in a harsh tone.
As a matter of fact, there are a notable number of such corporations that keep violating Chinese laws.
Topping the list is Wal-Mart. Earlier in September, the supermarket giant ran into trouble due to the discovery of 63,547 kilograms of fake green pork being sold in 12 stores in Chongqing, a municipality in southwest China. In the same region, Wal-Mart was also accused of false advertising and the selling of expired or uninspected food.
This incident also led to government investigations. As a punishment, Wal-mart received a series of penalties with 13 stores being closed for half a month by local authorities. As another result of this widely-watched scandal, Wal-Mart's China bosses stepped down earlier this month.
Are Chinese customers and the government being too picky? After all, the country has been a heaven for international investors for the past three decades. Usually, Chinese adore international brands, governments of various levels welcome them with friendly policies, and the media reports on them with tons of praise.
None of these, however, has seemed to earn respect from these transnational corporations for customers. Earlier this month, more than 200 users of Siemens refrigerators filed a group complaint to the company about refrigerator doors that were not easy to close. In response, the company posted a statement on its website claiming it "was not a problem of quality." That's all the globally famous corporation has done about the complaint— no official investigation, no apology, nothing but a self-defensive statement.
