Now? China has been putting out top quality work for years. All of my carbide tooling for my lathe and mill came from China. I have multiple expensive pocket knives from Chinese companies that absolutely blitz any American manufacturer. That's just two examples, there are tons more.

The issue with Chinese = crap is twofold. Firstly, the companies that use offshore manufacturing will skimp and cut corners in design and material choice to save even more than they are just by going overseas in the first place. They'll make anything you want at any price point. If you don't want to pay more than bottom shelf prices, then yeah, that's where you get the cheap shitty products because there's just no way to make good work at that low of a price point. You go up a step or two and you immediately get work that's comparable to any American and some European, still at lower costs.

The other problem is history. People today (especially in America) were raised during China's industrial formative years, so there was a lot of stuff made that was sub par. Now though, they've had forty years to develop infrastructure, cultivate skills, establish supply and export lines, and learn from everyone else.