those high quality artisans you see in promotional videos produced by the ccp aren't really exporting goods though, and if they are, it's not for the likes of us

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.

Same as made in Germany, the image will change.

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 don't think the "made in china" stigma exists anymore.

It definitely does. Think of all the battery fires.

I hear more of Tesla battery fires than anything out of China these days

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.

Depends on where I go shopping. For Temu and so on it definitely exists but for cars solar and other industrial output it’s just good value for low price.

Scooters, ebikes, battery packs is all I hear of.

I just had a cheap, Chinese generic battery pack blow itself up the other day. Managed to move it outside before it caught fire.

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.

For me it's stronger than ever. China has never been more of an existential threat to democracy around the world and continued human existence on this planet.

You say Chinese, but you mean Republican.

You say China, you mean Republicans

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 is already there. Republicans are working to get us there.

BYD's slave labor really helps them lower costs for the consumer.

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

Is China there? I know that Conservatives like to say that it is, but Republicans always lie.

Ive got friends who came from China, they disagree.

I don't have to imagine you, you're right here.

They have to. If China hears them talking shit, they'll hunt them down.

I guess it depends in which bubble of the world you live in. My own perception is that China is my only plausible hope for a world leader able to replace bad industries (AI, Coal, Petrol), capitalism and have foreign policies that are not dead-centered on pushing everyone else down for profit and undermining democracy.

I guess it explains the other comment you got about Republicans. For me the USA (and their Israeli friend) are by far the biggest threat to world progress and sustainability. (The USA basically never having been on the "good" side of history except when they eventually joined in on WW2).

If China hears them talking shit...in my house...

Do you think Chinese spies are listening at the windows?

Secret police and propaganda: The Chinese agents spying on expats in US
16 May 2026 - bbc.com

Republicans have less grip worldwide. Trump's overextended the military and can't do much more besides putting tariffs on allies soon. China's grip on the world is only growing.

Much of Tesla's manufacturing is LG (Korean), Panasonic (Japanese) and CATL (Chinese). So a Tesla battery fire could still be out of China (not sure where the other two manufacture theirs though, could also be China)

The slave labor saves at most like 20-30% of the price. China's cornered the world on lithium. Nowhere else can you get batteries made that cheap. Tons of vertical integration and I believe more than half of the world's lithium goes through China.

As long as we need lithium batteries for our EVs, China's going to beat everyone else in pricing.

And of course there's the insidious subsidies which are applied to all manufactured NEVs, not just the ones sold in China. Most countries can't afford to do this for their industries and in general it's considered to be kind of a dick move (enabling your manufacturers to sell for under manufacturing cost globally to drive out competitors)

I think that stigma is dated

There really aren't any left. China doesn't value them, so everyone goes into business or something. China does two things, they either copy a product from somewhere else or they hire outside firms from other countries to design their products if the company is big enough. Artists basically went to zero during the cultural revolution.

It's already changing.

China increases Coal and Petrol use every year and are second only to the USA in AI, and they helped put the Trump admin and the AfD into power.

Everything you just said was bullshit. China is the source of the things you called evil.

I don't think that's the stigma in question. It's "China makes bad quality products" not " china is an existential threat."

So yeah, this kind of proves my point, the "made in china = crappy products" stigma doesn't really exist any more, to the point people don't know what it was.

China being a malicious enemy with most of their products being knock offs of western tech definitely implies selling bad products, but if people had forgotten before then Temu, Ebay, and Alibaba have all been quick reminders.

You are still mad because your country is ran by a pedophile? Nothing China does will ever be more evil than the USA anymore. It's game over, deal with it. No amount of anti-China propaganda will make up for the thousands of innocent people you have killed in Latin America and the Middle East. Not even the Great Leap or whatever.

Your whole purpose and existence in this site is to spread American Exceptionalism. You are the exact same as these other users:

@FiniteBanjo - Almost 8k comments, 2 accounts, joined 8 months ago~
@UnderpantsWeevil - 24k comments, 1 account, joined 3 years ago~
@SatansMaggotyCumFart - Almost 15k comments, 9 accounts, joined 3 years ago~

You three spend most of your time talking shit about China and subtly excusing the USA, it's pathetic. But keep it up I say. You actually increase support for China with this dumb friction you give to people, lol. Look at how far it has gotten us, compared to 20 years ago, when people actually used to respect voices like yours, but not anymore.

What a dumb comment. You have never had democracy in your life. You are NOT a Mega Donor. You don't have the money to pay for any TV ad or campaign of the politician you want to see win. All your life, for the majority of all the countries in the world, people have been forced to elect either politician A who appeals to empathetic people, or politician B who appeals to sympathetic people, both with a touch of apathy for the other. Both ready to answer for the top 1%'s needs FIRST before ours.

If you're someone who still thinks "America is all about freedom and democracy" you are just a mouthbreathing moron. You never had freedom, you never had democracy, and it was all thanks to capitalism convincing you of giving all your hard work, money and sweat to a government and bunch of rich people that don't care about you. "Trickle Down Economics: decrease the taxes of the rich so they can create more jobs". They didn't create shit, only layoffs.

Yet, here you are, still trying to convince people to blindly hate Chinese people and whatnot. You bring up articles written by MAGAs, but since nobody reads the name of the author, and also the content, you get away with "looking confident enough" to sway away challenges. What a fucking waste of time. Your only purpose in this website is to try and spread American Exceptionalism just because you openly and proudly support the Jeffrey Epstein Class.

I've been seeing products marked as "made in PRC" rather than made in china to kind of work around that stigma/stereotype.

China literally helped reelect that fucking pedophile, so clearly there is something they have done to be more evil.

It's just not as bad as your Western propaganda makes you believe it is. If I spoke fluent Chinese I'd rather live in China than the fascist oligarch run shithole that is the USA.

Luckily I live in Australia which is pretty great.

100% agree, lemmy in general really has bought the "china bad" propaganda

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

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.

China still burns the most coal and permitted record new capacity last year, but in that same year it added ~300 GW of solar and ~100 GW of wind, oh and the world needs their production chains to deploy renewables. Just in case you were not arguing in bad faith.

Which is "second" in AI is debatable, but I salute the open-weights releases from their top models and their general efficiency compared to the brute force approach seen elsewhere.

I'm not saying China is perfect, but they basically can't be a worse world leader than the US was, and in these years we are having, I'm glad to at least witness the fall of the US empire and see how the world might heal from it..

Everything that is wrong with the USA is worse with China.

I’m glad to at least witness the fall of the US empire

Classic example of you Tankie fucks promoting the Trump admin.

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.

Don't worry, the world hates American liberals as well. You're all imperialist genocidal selfish assholes who only care about you and yours.

I had a housemate from India who kind of initially mocked when I bought a (second hand) new pair of earphones saying it's from China. I just gave a bewildered look and told him everything is made in China these days and that the reputation of poor quality Chinese product is past its stereotype. He still looked up where it is made and indeed my earphones are from China. But it shows he still prioritises where it is made than actually finding out if the inherent sound quality and features are good.

I'm Asian myself but many Asians are obsessed with showing status symbols. They especially like to get iPhones, despite majority of those phones being assembled in China.