> For a start, many of the Chinese factories making low-quality, cheap goods are instructed by Western IP holders to do so. You see the same thing in many industries no matter where they're manufactured - textiles is the biggest example that springs to mind, but fast food would be another.
Exactly this. It's not the Chinese factories that choose the quality level of the product - it's the companies that design and order them. Yes, the factories can and will cheat if they think they can get away with it, but roughly - they'll produce things at the quality level they're ordered to and paid to produce. The deluge of crap on the West is and always has been the fault of the Western companies that commission their production.
(And as a somewhat obvious proof of that point: all the high-quality stuff we buy and use? Almost all of it is made in China too.)
Exactly this. It's not the Chinese factories that choose the quality level of the product - it's the companies that design and order them. Yes, the factories can and will cheat if they think they can get away with it, but roughly - they'll produce things at the quality level they're ordered to and paid to produce. The deluge of crap on the West is and always has been the fault of the Western companies that commission their production.
(And as a somewhat obvious proof of that point: all the high-quality stuff we buy and use? Almost all of it is made in China too.)