China’s consumers slowly demanding change

updated 6:27 p.m. ET July 25, 2007

BEIJING - Liu Chang no longer has full use of her left hand, and the headaches get more piercing each year. But the egg-sized lump in her cheek is the most unbearable reminder of how an injection that was supposed to make her prettier destroyed her life instead.

Liu was in her mid-30s when a doctor in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen recommended a "shaping" shot of a so-called miracle gel to shave years off her face. Instead, the procedure led to disfigurement, chronic pain and depression. So last fall, she joined more than 50 other women in a lawsuit against the maker of the gel.

"People stare at me like I'm a monster," said Liu, now 45 and living with her mother in Beijing. "I have no boyfriend, I have no job... I finally decided I had to do something."

Liu is part of a burgeoning consumer rights movement in China, where victims of shoddy and outright dangerous products have long been unaware of their legal rights or had nowhere to turn for help.

Consumer associations have sprung up in every province, and the State Administration of Industry and Commerce says it received more than 4.6 million consumer complaints in 2006 alone. While the success rate of those complaints is hard to track in a communist regime, the administration says it recovered $103 million in all for consumers.

With growing prosperity, consumers are realizing they have the right to decent products. And the furor over contaminated Chinese exports such as toothpaste and pet food has drawn attention to shoddy consumer goods produced for domestic use. A Chinese regulator said this month that about 15 percent of China's products did not pass random safety checks.

"It's for all of us to fight for our rights," said Wang Hai, the country's most prominent consumer advocate. "Everyone has to do their part. You can't just sit around."

Wang said he files about 100 lawsuits a year — 95 percent of which are successful — and has won back $400,000 to $500,000 for consumers in the past nine years. He added that it's now easier to win cases because both the courts and companies are more aware of consumer rights.

Wang, who has been dubbed China's Ralph Nader by the foreign media, doggedly campaigned on behalf of victims of the gel. He gave Liu the number of her lawyer, Zhuo Xiaoqin.

"It's so pitiful. I think it is too much for a woman," said Zhuo. "Her life was ruined by someone who made big profit."

Despite the new awareness of consumer rights, definitive results still remain far and few between, thanks to a tangle of red tape and a virtually impenetrable legal system.

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