Name: Tong Duy Hung

Student Code: 0771091

Response Paper

BUSINESS ETHIC IN
CHINESE MILK SCANDAL

China, the world’s second biggest economy, is a developed country with lot
of big businesses. Their products are sold in all over the world. But to Vietnamese,
China has left a bad impression. And the phrase “made in China” is not what most
of Vietnamese people want to see on their property and some people even believe
that all the disqualified product come from China. What’d happened?
Actually, China has some big problem with the business ethic. In some
recent years, China had made lots of scandals which involving Milk contains
melamine, lead paint used in toys, injecting water into meat to increase it weight
and lately, the scandal involving a process of making fake eggs is also comed from
China. Making profit is good but making profit by cheating people is
unacceptable. Without usiness ethic, terrible things might happen.
And I think the worst scandal of China is the milk scandal in 2008 which
caused the death of six infants. The Sanlu Group is the one have to take the
resposibility for the scandal but there’s a fact that melamine is also found in 21
others companies’s products. In Vietnam market, there are lots of milk products
and some which come from China also found contains melamine. And now,
there’s a question was raised. Vietnam has our own milk company such as
Vinamilk, Lothamilk, etc… but why consumers still prefer foreign milk?
Sanlu Group was one of the biggest companies at the time. On 8th January
2008, it was awarded second prize at the 2007 National Scientific Techniques
Awards in the category of 'Innovative infant formula research and other related
techniques'. June 2008, it becomes the only milk provider for Chinese astronauts
and it was the exclusive milk producer for Chinese aerospace industry.
The Sanlu ground was a very strong corporation at the time and their future
could be brighter if they hadn’t get involved in the milk scandal in the same year.
According to the Xinhua News Agency, Sanlu received the first complaints about
its baby milk but until July 2008, the scandal became bigger when lots of parents
complained that their children had kidney stone because of using Sanlu’s milk.
Investigations were held. On 16 September, milk powder from 22 Chinese
companies was tested positive for melamine, and Sanlu was on the top of the
rankings.
The main purpose of mixing melamine into milk was simple: “to increase
product and decrease the cost”. When testing the quality of milk product, the main
target is the protein, and to measure the protein in milk, they check the nitrogen in
the milk. Some milk producer buy fresh milk from some cow farm through some
milk providers. The problem began when those milk providers mixed water with
fresh milk to increase the quantity then they add melamine to ensure the quality
(Melamine is white, odorless and contains much Nitrogen) then they sold it for
more profit.
After the milk scandal in Chinese, Vietnam also had to do lots of tests to
check melamine in milk products. Nowadays, Vietnamese milk market is full of
foreign milk products, and most of them came from China. Some of Chinese milk
products in Vietnam are tested positive for melamine. The question is that
Vietnam also has lots of milk products that is “Made in Vietnam” but why mot of
Vietnamese people still prefer foreign milk products. One reason is that most of
the people still have the idea that foreign milk is better than Vietnamese milk.
Other reason is that Vietnamese product information is still unclear to the
consumers. That’s why have to consider more about our milk advertisement.
It is true that in Vietnam today there are a lot of milk advertisements but
none of them can provide consumers with clear information about their product.
Some of the foreign milk advertisement shows consumers some untrue image of
their product. For example, some ads say that if your children use their milk, they
will grow up faster or more intelligent while some Vietnamese milk is difficult to
understand (for example the Vinamilk ads, we can see there’re lots of cows
singing the song “100%”, and what the song means or what the ad means are
unclear). Those ads make consumers believe that foreign milk is better than
Vietnamese milk. And that’s why our product is losing point in our own market.
 References:
Ebook:
Business Ethics and Corporate Governance (2010)
from www.icmrindia.org
This is an ebook discuss about business ethics cases in the history, it was
published in 2010 so that there are lots of cases and of course it talk about the
Chinese tainted milk scandal. The full version of the book is not available to me
because it was sell online. But the version of the ebook I have is a short one, it
provide me a long abstract about the cases. And it very helpful, it gives me an
abstract and some issue about the cases.

Website:
1. Con Đường của Sanlu
http://tuoitre.vn/The-gioi/280805/Con-duong-cua-Sanlu.html
This is an article talk about Sanlu Group. It gives me lot of information
about the Sanlu group and the scandal. It help me understand more about why they
have to put melamine into milk.

2. Sanlu Group Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanlu_Group
This is a wikipedia page which gives me much information about Sanlu
Group. Through this page, I know what Sanlu Group is and how it developed from
a small company in 1995, and what achievement it had before the scandal.

3. 2008 Chinese milk scandal - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
This page helped me a lot by giving me great information about the
scandal. Through this page I know how many children died, how many victims,
how melamine effects the children and much more.

4. Timeline of the 2008 Chinese milk scandal - Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
 This is the timeline of the 2008 chinese milk scandal. It have date of evens
that happened throughout the scandal.

5. Nghịch lý thị trường sữa Việt Nam

http://atpvietnam.com/vn/thongtinnganh/34193/index.aspx
This page explains to me the situation of the Vietnamese milk market and
how ads can influent the consumer.

6. Sữa Việt Nam 'rất ít' độ đạm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/vietnam/story/2009/02/090205_viet_milk
_rort.shtml
This page talks about milk quality in Vietnam.

7. 155 mẫu sữa không có melamine

http://tuoitre.vn/Chinh-tri-Xa-hoi/280976/155-mau-sua-khong-co-
melamine.html
This page provide a list of products that doesn’t contain melamine in
Vietnam

8. Danh sách 18 sản phẩm nhiễm melamine

http://dantri.com.vn/c20/s20-253455/danh-sach-18-san-pham-nhiem-
melamine.htm
This page provide a list of products that contain melamine in Vietnam

9. On The Front Line In China: Challenging Business Ethics

http://blogs.forbes.com/russellflannery/2010/08/17/on-the-front-line-in-
china-challenging-business-ethics/
This is an interview with Professor Hengda Yang and Stephan Rothlin from
the Center for International Business Ethics at the University of International
Business and Economics in Beijing. They talk about business ethic in China
nowadays.