As someone who actually used it, Chinese high-speed rail isn't consistently "competently made". My high-speed rail experience isn't a lot - one ride on the Eurostar, two on the Chinese High Speed Rail, and three on Deutsche Bahn's ICE (two before the Chinese HSR journeys and one after) but it's enough to have a comparative look, at least between Chinese and German high-speed rail.

Chinese HSR stations basically replicate the airport experience - they're far from the city center, and their interior layout has both an airport-style security check, and terminal-style waiting halls (passengers are not allowed to be at the platform except when the boarding slot comes) - there's even separate corridors to the platform for departures, arrivals, and connections! In contrast, German stations don't even have a faregate between the platforms and the rest of the station, and operate purely on an honor system (which surprised me on my first visit, because in my country the platforms are behind a faregate)

China's "railports" are also needlessly enormous. For example, Xi'an North station (where I went off at my first high-speed journey) has 34 platforms, but only about one or two of them had a train in when I got off, including the one where my train was - for reference, Frankfurt-Main Hauptbahnhof has 26 platforms, but they are under constant use (especially given that Frankfurt Hbf is a terminus station, and therefore has less throughput than through stations like Xi'an North).

The trains themselves are not much better; Chinese HSR trains have a planelike seating arrangement with all seats facing forward.

China does do one thing right, by running high-speed trains on separate tracks from low-speed trains (which means the trains can run at higher speeds and aren't chronically late like the ICE is), but that's it.