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.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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You say Chinese, but you mean Republican.
China is already there. Republicans are working to get us there.
Imagine having no object permanence such that by thinking about something else the first thing ceases to exist.
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.
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.
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.
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
I don't think the "made in china" stigma exists anymore.
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 China, you mean Republicans
It definitely does. Think of all the battery fires.
I hear more of Tesla battery fires than anything out of China these days
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.
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.
BYD's slave labor really helps them lower costs for the consumer.