After dragging its feet for months, Wal-Mart has finally decided to make good on its promise to donate to the earthquake relief in Sichuan, China by actually donating something!  On October 26, Wal-Mart held a donation ceremony (pictured on the right) to donate 2,566,000RMB (about $375,000) worth of ambulances and medical supplies to 20 different organizations in several cities throughout Sichuan.  And never one to miss out on publicity, Wal-Mart has even tagged the ambulances with the Wal-Mart brand (pictured after the jump).

Since the 8.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Sichuan in May, Wal-Mart has been plagued by criticism for its relatively low donation to the earthquake relief and Wal-Mart’s failure to live up to said donations.  Wal-Mart China’s PR director, Jonathan Dong, has been working overtime defending the company’s image - even writing to Wal-Mart Watch, imploring us not to spread negative stories about Wal-Mart’s donation fiasco. Asked why Wal-Mart hadn’t fulfilled its donation pledge, Dong stated that spending money is difficult! Fortunately for Mr. Dong, it looks like this problem may finally be ending.

Read the rest of this story ...

You might recall several posts we did regarding Wal-Mart’s donations to China’s earthquake relief efforts.  Those posts all cited numerous articles which detailed not only Wal-Mart’s meager donation pledges, but also that Wal-Mart had largely failed to follow through on their donations.  Worse, another story surfaced about how Wal-Mart would potentially profit off the earthquake victims by building stores in the earthquake region.

All these posts were a bit too much for Wal-Mart China’s director of public relations Jonathan Dong.  He even wrote us a strongly worded letter to express his dismay.  Unfortunately for Jonathan Dong, this story just won’t end.

According to a recent article from Beibu Gulf ASEAN Economic Web, Wal-Mart STILL has not met its donation targets!  Luckily, Jonathan has prepared a response:  “Spending money is hard.”

Public relations director Jonathan Dong (董玉国) explained “contributing money is easy; spending money is difficult. On May 23, Wal-Mart decided to give away an additional 17 million .  The company immediately looked for projects to aid, looking at subsidizing schools, orphanages, etc.  But Wal-Mart found out that many [companies] were financing the same projects.” At present time, Wal-Mart is in the process of seeking suitable projects to support.

Imagine that. 

According to a recent article in Bloomberg, a series of babies have fallen ill with kidney stones across seven provinces in China - one has died.  It is suspected that melamine contaminated powdered milk manufactured by Sanlu Group is responsible.  The Chinese ministry of health stated that Sanlu has recalled the milk powder while the investigation proceeds. 

Bloomberg also notes that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is said to be pulling Sanlu milk powder off its shelves, citing Wal-Mart China spokesman Dong Yuguo.  However, in a report from Ifeng Finance (China), Wal-Mart stores in Shanghai are still selling powdered milk “as usual”. 

Exacerbating this horrific situation, “contaminated baby formula may also have reached the U.S., according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which warned consumers that illegally imported Chinese milk powder may contain melamine.”
China Says Sanlu Milk Likely Contaminated by Melamine [Bloomberg]

China’s health ministry said milk powder produced by Sanlu Group Co., 43 percent owned by Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd., may have been tainted with the chemical melamine and could be linked to kidney stones in infants.

Read the rest of this story ...

We received quite an interesting note yesterday in our mailbox. It was from the Director of Public Relations for Wal-Mart China! He wrote in to let us know what he thinks of our website.

Mr. Dong seems upset that we are “spreading misinformation.” After all, it’s unfair to spin stories to make your organization appear in a better light - oh wait, Wal-Mart’s already done that. Like a hundred thousand times. I think they actually hire people to do that professionally. What’s that position called? Director of......Public Elations? Oh - Director of Public Relations! That’s it! So Jonathan Dong is criticizing our organization for spinning news stories, when that is, in fact, his full time job.

Let’s first address Mr. Dong’s cries of sensationalism. The original articles he mentions are here (original version) and here. We’ll let you judge for yourselves.

Secondly, Mr. Dong expressed some concerns about our inability to read Chinese media reports. To which we respond: who says we don’t? The articles on our website didn’t translate themselves; Wal-Mart Watch does our own translations and stands by them. We even keep a Mandarin-language blog, hosted on a Chinese server. Last we checked, the Chinese media wasn’t too keen on Wal-Mart, and as the company has expanded retail operations in the country, opposition has been continually mounting. We’re willing to bet that’s why Wal-Mart China needs a Director of Public Relations in the first place.

Thirdly, Mr. Dong’s request that we “pursue high ethical and moral standards” is simply sad. For a PR director from the world’s largest corporation to ask a small non-profit working on behalf of low-wage employees to behave more ethically seems backwards and backhanded. Perhaps Mr. Dong could direct his criticisms to his own company before trying to reform others.

In conclusion, thank you for your suggestions, Mr. Dong. We’d be happy to stop sensationalizing your company’s news if Wal-Mart does the same and closes up its massive PR spin shop. But more to the point, we think that your company is hardly one to question others’ morals or ethics.