In the 21st century, the burden of consumer safety has been moving towards the producers of the products. There is certainly still oversight and regulation of manufactured products, but truly there is a greater requirements for manufacturers to consider the harmful aspects of the products they make, and inform the consumers of how these products should be used to prevent harm. The chapter notes that there is a requirements for operator safety, it stops short from what could be defined as a robust legal safety requirements for products and services. This may a prescription for improving the status of China as a nation with a great number of effective consumer protection laws. Often the process of consumer safety is a reactive process. When something especially harmful is found out, there are recalls of that product. This gives regulators a huge burden of not only maintaining the safety of known potentially harmful products, but requires that they be vigilant in ensuring that when new potential sources of harm are found, that there is quick action and investigation. So not only is a strong consumer protection environment on the producers of the products, it is also on the regulators of the industry. If a nation does not put the resources into regulation, the only regulation that happens is the self-regulation. Often the self-regulation is driven by avoiding bad publicity and not the general sense of protecting welfare that drives government regulators.
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