What's made in China? Is the principle of free trade really more important than the health of our citizens? So far, at least, we know the answer.

Let's make four points:

First, it's scary to learn that Chinese-manufactured toothpaste on our store shelves could be poisonous. There have been only close calls here, as far as we know — with the long-term health effects, of course, yet to be determined. But in Panama, more than 100 people are known to have died from toxic cough syrup originating in China.

Other countries, too, have discovered import problems from China, including Canada, Spain and Liberia. The problems include salmonella, outright putrefaction of food and other adulterating tactics. We find foods and medicines filled with toxic melamine, diethylene glycol, nitrofuran and Malachite green — just for starters.

Second, how many Americans knew that the federal role in inspecting imports has dwindled at the same time that trade with China has ballooned? Today, China accounts for one-third of U.S. imports, worth some $300 billion. And, as everyone knows, China is one of the most polluted countries in the world.

So we might ask our, uh, leaders in Washington: "If the Chinese are willing to trash their own country in the name of making a buck, why would they hesitate to trash us?" And yet at a Tuesday hearing on Capitol Hill, we learned that just 1 percent of food imported into America is inspected, down from 8 percent in 1992.

Indeed, according to congressional investigators, inspectors in San Francisco have an average of 30 seconds to make a judgment on each shipment, including such basic questions as whether the shipment is accurately labeled as to country of origin — which many are not.

Third, one of the great political achievements of the 20th century, The Pure Food and Drug Act, is now under assault — assault from overseas. A little more than a century ago, in 1906, muckraking author Upton Sinclair published "The Jungle," which opened Americans' eyes to conditions in the meatpacking industry. Within months, President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation that ultimately led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration.

But now we are learning that the FDA has shrunk from the task of regulating Chinese imports. Why? Because China falls into the realm of "foreign policy," in which the well-being of Americans is subordinated to the well-being of trans-Pacific diplomacy, including trade.

In other words, the State Department, eager to keep Beijing happy at all costs, is the true arbiter of what gets into your stomach, not some low-level public health expert. Feel better?

Fourth, China's system is worse than you know — but don't take my word for it. "China's regulatory regime isn't really ready for the 21st century," said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, speaking to ABC News.

Yeah, a cynic might say, the Center is a Nader-ite outfit that never met a government regulation it didn't like. But it's harder to dismiss this warning: "As a developing country, China's food and drug supervision work began late and its foundations are weak. Therefore, the food and drug safety situation is not something we can be optimistic about." That's from Yan Jiangying, the alarmingly frank spokeswoman for China's food and drug agency, as recorded by The Washington Post.

So what's going on? How did we grow so dependent on China? The answer is that America made a conscious decision to outsource manufacturing to low-wage countries overseas, so that we could concentrate on personal training, landscaping and hedge-funding. And now we see the result.

It's that simple. When you rely on others to do your scut work for you, you get what they want to sell to you — or do to you.