Consumers may be wising up to the reality that cheaper not only doesn’t usually mean better, but it also can mean unsafe. China, which is manufacturing just about everything sold in American chain stores these days, is proving itself to be a less-than-trustworthy supplier as far as consumers are concerned. That has been providing opportunities for domestic manufacturers who have been beaten up rather badly in recent years because of the U.S. dollar’s exchange rate and China’s lower production costs.

A couple of years ago, I avoided a fire when I noticed that some Christmas lights, made in China, that I had strung along my wooden fence in my front yard, had overheated and begun to burn the fence. The lights had the Underwriters Laboratories seal of approval, but failed. I returned the relatively inexpensive lights to Home Depot where I purchased them, and chose to take a refund, rather than to get a replacement set. After all, why take another chance?

Who doesn’t know about the chemical, melamine, that contaminated at least two ingredients used to make more than 100 brands of dog and cat foods? China shipped melamine-tainted wheat gluten, corn gluten and rice protein concentrate to North America and South Africa. The contaminated products led to the deaths of many U.S. pets.

This week, the Chicago Tribune reported on an investigation it made into the continued sale of toys manufactured in China that have been recalled because they contain unsafe levels of lead. One test completed for the Trib found lead in a spinning top toy to be 40 times the legal limit.

These examples are a different sort of issue than the trouble that Japan had a few decades ago. I can still remember hearing about “cheap Japanese junk” that broke too soon or didn’t perform as well as U.S.-made products. But safety wasn’t raised as an issue then. It certainly is one with some Chinese-made products.

As the Tribune article states, U.S. consumers are actively looking for toys manufactured domestically, because they refuse to take a chance with the health of their children.

Unless China shows some remarkable progress in its product safety, it will lose business to more expensive, but reliable and safe, manufacturers from other countries.