@BaconSandwich I’ve worked directly with many Chinese nationals or Chinese decent engineers and surprise-surprise, they are human as anyone else, culpable to the same flaws and merits as any other nation’s people. The culture and society are unique and some elements of that do drive inferior manufacturing or engineering as that is what the West sought for so long, ‘cheaper’, and we got it by the literal containership full.
On the other side, my personal Nintendo Switch, iPhone and every carrier-grade switch and router at the US telecommunications company in which I work is hardware manufactured in China. These are tier 1 consumer or commercial products and they come from China and have for decades. US, Japanese and other brands all chose to save money outsourcing to China and now China holds the deck. China certainly stole innovation from others, as did Korea and Japan before them, the US before them, the British and Germans before them and the Romans before that, all through written history and even before… Volvo has been a Chinese subsidiary for a decade and people seem to be enjoying their cars more than ever.
We need to close the gap of relations between China and accept that they are a superpower alongside the US. I have my doubts about many Chinese products but with rising demand and competition to be good, they’ll prioritize engineering over pricepoint and the quality will go up, that is how their industry works. Set a target and drive hard toward it. It is inevitable that Chinese vehicles will see market share in the states and we can’t do chicken tax bullshit, that idea needs to die. Their strategy works well and is a nice trade-off to closing the door on faces — require international organizations wishing to sell domestically to partner with another domestic company or the government itself so that the domestic economy benefits slightly from growing market share of the international entity,
I just spent two weeks in New Zealand, driving a 2021 Great Wall Steed, which is a very Chinese ute, based on the 1st Gen Colorado (GM licensed the design to a Chinese company), with a Mitsubishi 4G69 engine design (also licensed to the Chinese by Mitsu) and the result is a perfectly decent vehicle that was far cheaper than a Hilux or Holden Colorado. It was the difference between my father-in-law affording a truck or not, so the older design that is a bit cheap and mixed on build quality was better than not at all. I have to say it was a decent yet goofy vehicle and most people don’t have the privilege to be discerning about their primary vehicle.