Numbers on a chart.

Now you can hear the rumble, getting louder.

Last week, Ireland and Britain got their first taste of Sinophobia, when toys destined for toddlers' hands and mouths, in the shape of Elmo, Big Bird and Dora the Explorer, were recalled.

Turns out the paint on them contained lead. Turns out they were manufactured by a several-outsourcings-removed supply chain gang somewhere in China.

It follows US scares over lead paint on Thomas the Tank Engine toys, as well as poisoned dog food and unsafe tyres, all made in China. Last April, the European Commission reported that more than 50% of all unsafe consumer goods pulled off of European shelves were made in China.

Nor is Lead-Free Replacement Elmo likely to be the last of it. Thankfully, no one has been hurt. Yet. But when one territory has captured 50% of the world's manufacturing work, when things go wrong, that place will get the blame 100% of the time.

In another case, 250,000 have been killed and another 2.5 million displaced in the Darfur region of Sudan. Last week, China lifted its veto and allowed the UN to press a "hybrid" peacekeeping force of 26,000 on Sudan that will supersede a 7,000-strong African Union force that failed to stop the systematic rape, murder and ethnic cleansing that was called "genocide" by the US Secretary of State nearly three years ago. Motive for China's determiniation to shield Sudan isn't hard to work out. Sudan has oil . . . 5 billion barrels so far, but possibly quite a bit more. China's imports of oil increased by 30% last year. China currently buys two-thirds of the oil Sudan produces.

Since 2003, a few lonely voices have tried to call attention to Darfur, the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

John O'Shea of GOAL has been typically blunt in his assessments, but to little reaction elsewhere until recently. To his credit, foreign minister Dermot Ahern has paid the situation some attention, and newly promoted Gordon Brown won plaudits for getting the Chinese to lift their veto.

But it's entirely possible that the Chinese were far more afraid of Hollywood than Westminster, never mind Iveagh House. Specifically, the possibility that Hollywood might cast China in the role of new global villain in time for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, which the Chinese regime really could not be more desperate to have remembered fondly as China's superpower-coming-out party.

Stephen Spielberg is the unpaid artistic director for the opening ceremonies. As criticism of China over Darfur increased, Spielberg came under attack.

Actress Mia Farrow went so far as to compare, in an April Wall Street Journal op-ed, Spielberg to Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's filmmaking propagandist for the 1936 Games.

Last week, Spielberg threatened to resign if China didn't do more over Darfur.

George Clooney, Don Cheadle, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been raising money for a group called 'Not On My Watch'; earlier this year the celeb-activists began directly accusing China over Darfur. Rumours are they might call for a boycott of the 2008 Olympics.

Being so outclassed by a bunch of shallow actors might even prod the anti-war left into demos at the Chinese embassy and to stop the shameful and delusional dismissal of Darfur as a Zionist plot to distract from Palestine and Iraq.

Closer to home, one kid with lead poisoning from a Chinese-made Elmo will prompt noisy demands for boycotts. But it's not that simple. The globalised economy . . . which has lifted a billion people out of poverty, faster than any aid programme ever could . . . won't permit it. The oil from Sudan lets China make the stuff the West wants to buy. China isn't getting closer. It's been in your child's toy chest for years.

The threat that you might be willing to give that up may be enough to keep China from stopping the West from doing something about Darfur . . . if only through the closing ceremonies next year in Beijing.