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.

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

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.

I think that stigma is dated

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

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.

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.

Same as made in Germany, the image will change.

Having experience with small parts in both China and US, the Chinese were more consistent.

The main difference is communication. Chinese machinists will go straight to standard, but they always hit the callouts on my parts. They demonstrated my errors. Once i improved and communicated better i never had a problem with them.

US machinists can ‘fill in the blanks’ and compensate for bad/incomplete communication. That led to my poor habits. But going back to them for some parts that required US manufacture I’ve had them miss direct callouts and require remanufacture or touch ups.

Time and money. I’d rather pay less and spend 2 more hours checking and rechecking rather than days or weeks and $$$ on reman.

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

Reminds me of this video about a bicycle. Not because it’s “legitimate high quality” (especially compared to the actual high-quality carbon fiber bikes China is very capable of making these days), but because China is proud of it.

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’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.