By Lu Yiming

A recall notice is not necessarily a sign of regulatory failure. More often, it is a sign that a safety system is working.

For consumers, product safety is felt in everyday moments: a car owner receiving a recall message, a power bank being returned over safety concerns, a toy being removed from shelves, or a software update sent to a vehicle. Behind these familiar scenes is a broader change in China's market regulation. Product recalls are no longer seen simply as after-sales fixes. They are becoming an important tool for identifying, managing, and reducing risks.

In the Chinese mainland, product recall has become a regular and increasingly data-driven regulatory practice. In 2025, China carried out 190 automobile recalls, involving 6.846 million vehicles, and 1,081 consumer product recalls, involving 8.236 million products. New energy vehicles accounted for 105 recalls, involving 2.652 million vehicles. There were also 13 over-the-air software update recalls, involving 1.756 million vehicles.

These figures show more than the scale of recall activity. They also show how product safety risks are changing. As products become smarter, more connected, and more dependent on complex supply chains, safety issues are no longer limited to traditional mechanical failures. In the automobile sector, potential defects may involve batteries, electronic control systems, assisted driving functions, software updates, and human-machine interaction. A vehicle may continue to change long after it has left the factory.

The same trend can be seen in consumer products. A safety risk may begin with a product, but it can quickly spread to online platforms, logistics, use scenarios, and even public safety. As more Chinese products enter overseas markets, enterprises must also deal with different safety standards, reporting rules, and recall requirements. Product quality is therefore no longer only a factory issue. It has become a question of consumer trust, supply-chain responsibility, and international competitiveness.

This is why product recall is increasingly a test of both corporate responsibility and regulatory capacity. A major recall involves much more than identifying a defect. It may require consumer notification, product retrieval, testing, repair, replacement, logistics, disposal, and follow-up evaluation. It may also involve suppliers, platforms, dealers, and service providers. If any link is slow or weak, consumer protection may be affected.

China's market regulators have been strengthening the technical foundation for recall governance. Potential defects are now identified through multiple sources, including consumer complaints, product injury monitoring, online public opinion, domestic and overseas recall notices, enterprise reports, and technical service information. These signals are collected, classified, compared, and analyzed to support risk assessment and recall decisions.

This marks a wider shift in governance. Regulators are not only responding after risks become visible. They are working to detect early signals before small problems become major incidents. They are not treating each recall as an isolated case. They are connecting information from different channels to understand how risks emerge, spread and evolve. Product recall is being placed within the full life cycle of product safety management.

For consumers, this means potential risks can be discovered and addressed more quickly. For enterprises, it means product safety is not only a legal obligation but also part of long-term competitiveness. A recall may expose weaknesses in design, production, supply-chain management, or after-sales service. If handled responsibly, it can also help a company improve quality, strengthen management, and rebuild market trust.

The rise of new energy vehicles and intelligent connected products makes this task even more urgent. Software updates, battery performance, assisted driving systems, and data-related functions all require new forms of monitoring and evaluation. In some cases, the boundary between a product defect, a software issue, and a service responsibility may become less clear. Regulation must therefore keep pace with industrial innovation.

China's experience shows that recall governance can serve both safety and development. It protects consumers from unreasonable risks, while encouraging enterprises to improve quality and strengthen supply chains. As Chinese brands expand globally, the ability to respond to product safety issues in a timely, transparent, and responsible way will become an important part of their international reputation.

The next step is to make recall governance more forward-looking, coordinated and resilient. This means improving data monitoring, strengthening risk analysis, enhancing recall implementation, and exploring supportive mechanisms that help enterprises fulfil their responsibilities. The goal is not only to fix problems after they appear, but to identify, prevent, and manage risks throughout the product life cycle.

Product safety is a foundation of consumer confidence and high-quality development. By turning product recalls from post-sale remedies into a tool of modern risk governance, China is building a safer and more trustworthy market. It is also offering a practical example of how modern market regulation can protect everyday life while supporting industrial upgrading.

The author is from the Defective Product Recall Technical Center, State Administration for Market Regulation.