MATTEL, the world's largest toymaker, sent a top executive to personally apologize to China's product safety chief, Li Changjang, as reporters and company lawyers looked on.

"Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys," Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president for worldwide operations, told Li on Friday.

Debrowski admitted that the vast majority of its toys were recalled as a result of design flaws, rather than errors by Chinese manufacturers.

A press release from Mattel said that a total of 17.4 million toys had been recalled because of loose magnets and those recalled because of high levels of lead numbered 2.2 million.

Mattel's annual toy output stands at nearly 800 million.

"The magnet-related recalls were due to emerging issues concerning design and this has nothing to do with whether the toys were manufactured in China," said the press release.

"Mattel does not require Chinese manufacturers to be responsible for the magnet-related recalls due to design problems," it said, adding that the company improved the design in January to prevent the magnets from falling off.

It also admitted that Mattel's lead-related recalls were an overreaction as the company is "committed to applying the highest standards of safety for its products."

"The follow-up inspections confirmed that some of the recalled toys complied with the U.S. standards," it said.

But the company insisted the same high standards in the recall of its products have been applied in the European Union and other countries.

Li, director of the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said the conclusion of Mattel was basically consistent with the results of investigations carried out by the Chinese side, which showed that 87 percent of the 21 million recalled toys had design flaws while the remaining 13 percent contained excessive lead.

"Expanding the recall without disclosing the exact proportion of the recalled toys among its imports is not proper conduct," Li said. "We hope Mattel can handle similar issues in a better way in future."

Li also said that police have detained four Chinese people who allegedly provided substandard paint to Lida Plastic Toys Co. Ltd., a contract manufacturer for Mattel.

Lida's boss, Zhang Shuhong, committed suicide after the Mattel recall.

Li didn't reveal their names and said more than 300 domestic toymakers have had their business licenses suspended or revoked in a national quality overhaul.

China is the world's largest toy manufacturer, exporting 22 billion toys last year, about 60 percent of the global total.

In another development, about 1 million Chinese-made babies' cots have been recalled in the United States after two children became trapped and suffocated in the beds, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Simplicity, a supplier of baby furniture to Wal-Mart Stores and other big retailers, is recalling the cots.

Although the cots were made in China, the U.S. safety agency said the problem was caused by design flaws and not the assembly process.

"This recall isn't a China-made problem. It's more about hardware and crib design and less about it being assembled in China," a safety commission spokeswoman said.

Two infants, a six-month-old and a nine-month-old, died in the cots, which were sold until May. A one-year-old child died in a newer model, which has not been recalled but is being investigated by the safety agency, commission officials said.

(SD-Xinhua)