> This seems to be startlingly contrast

Only to someone not involved with Chinese manufacturing.

It's not too hard to find good manufacturers that you can trust. If you do, they will be operating with this same mindset, completely distrusting everyone else. Great! You're done, right? Well sure, until management changes (this happened to us once).

Suppliers are always low/no trust unless you’re a sucker.

The only difference is that is more difficult to hold Chinese suppliers accountable. Americans will happily cheat you as well.

Not sure what you have had to deal with but that is not my experience at all. More often than not any issues I have had with suppliers is my purchasing department was the one trying to get lower cost goods without getting engineering and Vendor QC involved.

I have never had to deal with an American supplier "downsizing" wire from one guage to the next smaller for example.

Nor as linked above, including extra electronics to exfiltrate credit card data from terminals.

>"Americans will happily cheat you as well."

I did not have too much experience with US manufacturers. I however can talk about Canada and Brasil. My experience with Brasil was stellar. Canada - you better fucking watch. As for China - I did order directly high power DC/DC converters. Those were available in the US and China. China came 10 times cheaper ($25 vs $250 apiece). The devices where we have installed those still work like a charm more than a decade after.

Chinese manufacturing 10+ years ago is completely different to Chinese manufacturing in 2025. the other comment about "zero trust" is significantly more apt

It’s always different 10 years ago, though, isn’t? Everything is. Rose colored glasses and all.

I remember these exact same “Chinese quality” threads 10 years ago and they read pretty much the same as this one, complete with the “well 10 years ago I got great stuff” and “yeah 10 years ago was different”.

Cycles, man. Cycles.

Another explanation could be that things have continued to degrade.

That sounds like very specific anecdata for Canada vs Brazil.

It is. I am pretty sure examples of this and that exist in either country. I am just telling my own very narrow impression.

Did you miss the "it's still cheaper then building in the US" part?

US manufacturers aren't doomed: they already don't exist, and the infrastructure needed to support them also does not exist.

Smarter Every Day had a very interesting video about trying to make a reasonably simple barbecue tool entirely in the US.

Close to impossible without a serious time investment and dedication.

I didn't hear a single person talking about wanting or needing China's great quality control. Are you sure there's a conflict here? I think you oversimplified when you were listening to what people were saying.