Made in China = junk.
These days when I buy things like wheel bearings or other hard parts...I buy Made in USA, Made in Germany, Made in Japan, in that order.
Most anything made in China is garbage before you take it out of the package. Contracts mean nothing to them. They will make it do the drawing, but the choice of materials is always suspect.
You order an item as 7075T6 aluminum, and it comes as 7075-0. They were the lowest bidder, and it shows up not to spec and the product fails in the field because nobody has the facilities to verify the hardness spec.
This is the way the Chinese do business...there is no quality, there is no honor, there is no shame, no meet the terms of the contract, there is only gaming the contract.
These people were making lousy pig iron using cow manure as fuel, when WE were putting men on the moon.
The vast majority, if not all, the consumer grade Chinese tools at, for example, Harbor Freight, are not worth the gas money to bring them home.
However, there are some notable exceptions in electronic test gear - couple years ago, I bought a Rigol (made in China) 100 MHz dual-channel DDS function generator with the expectation that it would be adequate for my needs, but would not compare in quality with HP/Agilent/Keysight or other US designed gear in my shop. After looking at its performance, I would put it at about 95% of Keysight performance at about 25% of the price.
If the Chinese put their mind to it, at least in the limited world of electronic test equipment, based on my experience, they are quite competent.
And, they are moving up the food chain in electronic test equipment.
You have that right. I like the Chinese people and a lot of their culture, I have to say that. But I've consulted with Chinese businesses for years, trying to get them to meet standards. I found that it cannot be done. An honest business cannot succeed when its competitors cut corners. So they all do just as you said, game the contract.
If you put in the overhead of many inspectors, inspectors of the inspectors, quality control at all levels, inventory and shipping security.... Government payoffs at all levels, not to mention trying to manage when the time shift has either the U.S. managers or the Chinese managers having telephone meetings at 12AM... I can't see why we even try to manufacture there, it is not economical. Just too much overhead trying to get the work force and managers to do what the average American learns in Sunday school, what are called Western values. Or used to, and probably will be that way in the near future. But I agree with everything you said.