I'm typing this on a laptop that has a proliferation of stickers on the back of it saying variously "Made in Japan" "Made in Ireland" and, of course, "Made in China". The computer mouse is a bit more straightforward, just the one "Made in China" label on that. The same applies to a plethora of other everyday items within easy reach. From fridges to fashion, electronics to egg noodles, the world's fourth-largest economy really has become the manufacturer of the world.

So I read with interest about a recent report by German pre-press guru Michael Mittelhaus that predicts big changes in the European printing plate market as Chinese plate manufacturers ramp up production and start selling their wares over here in a big way. Mittelhaus was even bold enough to predict that within a decade the so-called "big three" of plate manufacturing - Agfa, Fuji, and Kodak - will cede their dominant European position to the Chinese.

This notion makes me uneasy for a number of reasons. As we become more and more reliant upon imports we also become more vulnerable. China's massive manufacturing might is awesome, but the sheer scale of it means that when things go wrong, they go wrong in a very big way. Witness last year's scandal surrounding Chinese-made milk formula contaminated with melamine. Product recalls in western economies include made in China toys contaminated with lead, pet food that killed dogs and cats in the USA (also a melamine problem), and faulty infant cots. I've spent some time studying the product recall information posted at UK Trading Standards and the US Consumer Product Information sites and it makes for worrying reading. While we tend to hear about the big headline-grabbing problems, such as the melamine issue, there's a pretty constant level of other recalls going on, everything from toothpaste to toasters. Not every faulty product that's recalled is made in China, of course, but it's interesting to see what is. And as western brand owners become reliant on Chinese manufacturing plants the dynamics become equally fascinating. In 2007 toy maker Mattel ended up apologising "to the Chinese people" for damaging the country's manufacturing reputation after a large-scale product recall.

So, back to printing plates. It's a pretty mission-critical product for a printing company. Quality, reliability, consistency and the availability of technical support when needed are imperative. An inferior or inconsistent plate will be fundamentally detrimental to the productivity of a printer's biggest single asset. The big three suppliers previously mentioned invest millions in R&D and quite rightly they guard their intellectual property, and will I'm sure actively police their patents.  They have also made significant investment in their European manufacturing and support infrastructures, so can we assume the Chinese importers will be doing the same on the support side? What, I wonder, will the carbon footprint of these products be? That's an issue I've yet to see debated. Or will a theoretical saving of €1 per square metre mean people are less concerned about that? If these products do come onto the market in volume it will be intriguing to track who is selling and using them and precisely how they get on.