“made in china = crap” is 70’s era and later propaganda from soon to be failing american industries. anyone remember “made in taiwan roc” stamps on stuff?

The whole ‘made in China = shit’ stereotype ended long ago, as even Tim Cook himself publicly stated in an interview.

Ignoring the fact that almost everything is made in China, meaning both high and poor quality products come from there, China still produces vastly more high quality products than any other country.

The relevant fragment of the interview with Tim Cook:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wacXUrONUY

China produces some high quality products, but they also seem to overlook sone really sleazy business practices. If you run into these it will taint your view of China.

It’s only a stigma here in the us. Across the rest of the world they know the newest chinese technologies are better than us made, every country in the world is stocking up on Chinese EVs except here.

Every country that moves up the value ladder goes through that phase. First the British looked down on the Germans and the US, then the three of them on Japan, then on Korea and Taiwan, then China. Now I guess it’s mostly Malaysia and Thailand; the ‘Chinese = low tech’ stigma is mostly a boomer thing.

Chinese manufacturers probably have it slightly easier because China itself is such a huge market, so most of their sales would be domestic. But I wonder if people from Shenzhen or Shanghai will look down at products made in, say, Hebei.

Maybe that was true once upon a time, but these days there’s so much cheap crap on the market. Maybe it came from China or Southeast Asia or the United States itself, nobody knows, nobody cares. The people who talk about cheap Chinese stuff are just being xenophobic racist assholes.

I mean, “made in Japan” used to mean that something was cheap and may not last. That’s generally not something that’s heard these days. Then Korea, Taiwan, etc.

I think it’s useful to remember that the stigma is around goods made for export, often at the direction of Western companies who were seeking to lower production costs by offshoring production.

I’m a hobby ceramicist and Jingdezhen, Yixing, Qinzhou and Rongchang are world famous for being centres of excellence, and have been for centuries. Residencies (where you go live and work in a place to learn local techniques) are in high demand. The local clay in each region is an important part of what makes them so special. There are not that many regions in the west that are still associated with all aspects of the pottery process the ways these places are - at least not ones that are still active and not mostly preserved as heritage sites. I’d love to get my hands on some of that beautiful Yixing purple clay lol.

I think that stigma is dated

It will change. China is now more and more synonymous with huge R&D budgets for innovations.

I think the stigma still holds, mostly because a lot of Chinese goods exported to the west have planned obsolescence baked in.

This is largely because this is the manufacturing trend worldwide, not because Chinese fabrication is inherently bad. In effect, the world got enshittified while China was holding the “make all the things” card, so any improvements in their manufacturing are likely overlooked.

Now, as to who is at fault for the enshittification; this remains an open question to explore case by case. In some cases, it’s just capitalism at pay (lowest bidder giving lowest quality), in others it’s a slightly more sinister bid for future business by ensuring repeat customers down the line, in others (rarer by far) the hands that rule dictate.

It sucks for American liberals to be associated with MAGA. Life’s tough all over.

There are some damn fine manufacturers that know that and are working to change the perception. Zen-Wu toolworks makes some of the best chisels available.

It must suck for legitimate high quality Chinese artisans to live in a totalitarian regime which frequently outlaws art forms and spiritually with threat of imprisonment, slavery, death, and fiery destruction of everything they’ve built.

Same as made in Germany, the image will change.