Chinese made crap.
Oh so racist!
When I was small like 5 if you went into a store and looked at the cheapest crap toys or things for kids they all were stamped with “made in Japan”. From today’s perspective that may be shocking. Japan was recovering from a war where they sent millions of young people to their deaths and destroyed the economy. They made stuff to sell. Anything and everything they could. It was crap. That was all they could do with blown up factories and small shops with old or damaged equipment.
Thing about Japan, they have pride. Probably too much as that could have contributed to the war starting in the first place. They also have social cohesion. The entire country could be mobilized behind an idea. It could be conquering all of Asia, or building high quality stuff. After the war an American Statistics and quality expert visited to help rebuild the economy and rescue them from Crap products. Today the highest award for excellence in Japan is named after W. Edward Deming. He was very successful.
I work for a Chinese company. Our sales and engineering office is in Canada, our factory is in Southern China. The products we make are needed all around the world, but are not environmentally clean. Lots of solvents and Volatile Organic Compound and stuff like that. Regulations drove the factory from Canada to China. I believe that we make good quality stuff. It is a battle though.
I have dealt with Chinese businesses for decades. It takes a special attitude to brave it. The phrase trust but verify comes to mind. China is capable of making world class stuff, take the Iphones for example. But the central motivation of every Chinese business person is to maximize profit NOW. If that means cheating, or making substandard stuff in the hope you do not get caught that is a thing to do. I know you can get certificates for things assuring the buyer that this or that meets ASTM or UL or whatever. It is easy to print those things up. I have seen this first hand.
It is not a matter of sampling a shipment. It is checking every single item. Letting the supplier know you will do that and not paying them until it is done. Then you get the quality stuff. That is what APPLE does.
Once to do a favor to a company in China we bought an order of expansion joints from them at a good price and sold them to one of our customers. We had to pay cash in advance. That should have been a clue. The parts failed pathetically as they used the wrong (much cheaper) rubber compound. WE had to pay to repair them. The supplier told us to F off. They did not care that our owner did it to help the guy he considered a friend. They did not care that we would never do business with them again or that a friend got screwed. Make money NOW.
In the news I see that a large shipment of Chinese medical grade masks failed inspections on arrival. I also see that overnight new producers of masks suddenly appeared selling counterfeit products labelled as being made by licensed and certified companies. Most of the Ebay stuff you see like that is phony.
A few weeks ago a shipment of medical ventilators to the UK did not work and were junked. Thousands of them. All paid for because if you did not pay premium they went somewhere else. Money was made.
Last week a local Chinese entrepreneur was arrested with 1000 fake masks he was selling at a huge mark up. Hey profiteering is not just Chinese, but fakery is pretty much a normal thing from China. We deal with it all the time even in China. It is a problem getting supplies and materials for our factory. Fortunately we have suppliers we can rely on as we have enough history. If we need something unusual it gets scary.
Over the last few years we have seen stories about children's jewelry made from toxic metals and toys painted with lead based paints. In another scandal Pet food was adulterated with toxic plastic as it made it appear in tests as being high in protein. When that was found out the company started to make baby food for Domestic Chinese consumption. Really poisoning babies was OK to these people. Money money money. I do not make this up.
China has many honest and worthy people doing their best. I know some of them and trust them. If you do not know them and you want to get a good quality thing go into it assuming you will be cheated and set up the deal to protect yourself. If the person will not deal that way it is safe to say they were going to cheat you.
The difference between Crap and good stuff is moving cautiously. Very cautiously. Trust but verify. Do not sample. Check everything.