It behooves consumers in China and across the world to let Beijing know just how outraged they are.

China does things in spectacular fashion.

None more so than at the recent Olympic Games in Beijing, which had everyone tripping over adjectives to come up with the most striking ways to describe the magnitude of the event, the opening ceremony in particular.

We have also had an equally monumental event, as far as the Chinese citizenry and leadership are concerned: the country’s third manned space flight since 2003.

Last weekend, somewhere up there, beyond the earth’s gravitational pull, one of the country’s taikonauts went on a walkabout in space. That first space walk by a Chinese astronaut, after just two manned missions, was a symbolic representation of the country’s confidence and reach.

Coming after the successful staging of the Olympics, it was a further representation of China’s status as a major league player and a member of a select club of countries, whose home-grown programmes enable them to put men in space. Yet even as we continue to marvel at the capabilities and potential of this growing economic power, China has shown in these past weeks that it can also be spectacular for an altogether negative development—the melamine-tainted milk powder scandal.

Its astronauts orbiting earth at an altitude of some 343km would have had considerable time to survey the extent to which its ill-effects have spread and where it has generated concern: across Asia, Europe, Canada, Africa, Australia. Few countries appear to have been untouched or left unconcerned.

The oohs and aahs, the awe and adulation, have passed.

For consumers across the globe, as of now, the Made-in-China label is tainted. And if it isn’t yet, it ought to be treated as such.

Why so harsh a view?

Because how else can the message be driven home that if standards are allowed to be lax, if supervision is weak and corners are cut, then the world is going to have difficulty trusting anything that comes out of what has become the world’s factory.

This is not the first time that China’s inadequacies and its production and safety standards have been called into question.After lapses that included toys with lead paint, pet food contaminated with melamine, and toothpaste tainted with a chemical used in anti-freeze, it would have been reasonable to expect that officials, manufacturers and the government would have tightened up on measures.

That only four children have so far died from the melamine scandal, is four children too many.

That more than 53,000 children have been taken ill as of last week is scandalous. Spectacularly scandalous.

The Chinese government appeared content to make its apologies; vowed to bring standards up to international levels; sacked the head of its product quality watchdog; blamed the country’s biggest milk powder producer, the Sanlu Group for a cover-up; and then basked in the glory of its latest venture into space.

If officials fail to learn from the outcry which followed from the three previous scandals, then it behooves consumers in China and across the world to let Beijing know just how outraged they are, and to not let up until there is an effective response where safety and standards are concerned.

Giving retailers an earful, returning products and even boycotting China products as some have taken to doing, means that shops will, in turn, turn the heat on their distributors.

And if the Chinese government is made equally aware of the anger that this scandal has generated—and the financial and economic consequences that it has for those who have set up shop there, perhaps it will be jolted into firmer action.

The Olympics and the manned space flight have become a showcase for the capabilities and prowess of the Chinese people and China as a country.

Both have shown that the government has the wherewithal to get to grips with challenging tasks. The melamine scandal is one spectacular challenge that it should not wash its hands of. (By PAUL JACOB In Singapore/ The Straits Times/ AsiaNews)