The head of a Chinese toy manufacturing company at the centre of a huge US recall has committed suicide, according to CNN via the Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper.

The recall, if you missed it, involved about 1m toys suspected of having lead in their paint. The products were aimed at pre-schoolers and featured characters such as Dora the Explorer and Elmo. If I remember correctly, about 95,000 of these toys were recalled from Ireland and Britain.

Zhang Shuhong hanged himself. His firm, Lee Der Industrial, had been sold the paint by his best friend. The Chinese government, which is taking a very firm line on contaminated products, had suspended the company’s export licence in the wake of the scandal (the second toy-related recall in a short space of time).

I don’t know if suicide is common among disgraced Chinese officials, as it is in Japan. Zhang’s action may well have saved him from a public trial and swift execution shortly afterward. At the very least, it is a sign of the new China.

The country is cleaning up its act in a big, big way. The government has realised that defective exports — such as contaminated pet food and tooth paste which killed dozens of animals and people — reflect badly on the nation as a whole and its taking steps to address the issue.

Part of this is stamping out corruption, which has been endemic among officials across the country. One only has to look back at the execution of Zheng Xiayou, former head of the food and drug safety agency. He took some €630,000 in bribes to clear fake medicines, one of which killed 10 people. Zheng was shot in June for his crime, a sentence which raised eyebrows even in China, which has a rather liberal attitude toward administering the death penalty — but he was symptomatic of the situation and so was made an example.

Local goverments have also got in on the act. Authorities in Zhejiang province have produced a computer game called Incorruptibe Fighter, in which the aim is to torture and kill corrupt officials. It was downloaded more than 100,000 times within a week of its release.

In Beijing, students are being given anti-graft textbooks detailing cases of corruption and execution as the government tries to scare the next generation of leaders into being honest.

China’s roaring growth means it is only a matter of time before it seriously challenges the United States’s economic might — though one could argue that, given the huge imbalance of trade between the two, this is already happening. That’s not to say China will be the global superpower of the 21st century (go to Bloomberg for a look at things which could scupper the economy), but we have to recognise its potential.

The country is exercising its influence on the global stage; the deal regarding UN-African Union peacekeepers for Darfur would not have passed were it not for China’s support. It is also engaged in massive mineral exploration projects in Africa as its builds economic and political alliances with nations hitherto overlooked.

While pollution is taking a serious toll on the natural environment, the World Bank says China’s economic boom has dragged 400m people out of poverty in 20 years. Inequality is still rampant but lessons can be learned.

In 2001, the historian JJ Lee noted that:

China is striving to change its social system while simultaneously striving toward superpower status. This challenge is unprecedented. Soviet Russia and Japan tried something similar at different times. But they did not face the challenge of doing so in the white hot glare of the internet.

He also felt the outcome

will depend not only on political skill and economic performance. It will also depend heavily on how effectively China can respond to the other sources of American dominance today — intellectual, cultural and social power… A key determinant of how world society develops in the new century is likely to be the nature of social thought emanating from the Chinese intelligentsia.

This type of challenge to American cultural dominance has not happened. I can’t see it happening in China’s current political state — certainly not while it and much of the world operate different political systems.

Nevertheless, we should all keep a close eye on China over the next 10 years. And let’s not forget about India…