[gfloyd2002]

Not necessarily. Some of the worlds worst stuff is made in China. Forget about government regulation, forget about corporate ethics, and forget about pride in workmanship or experience in manufacture of a particular product as traits to be taken for granted. And much of the country's manufacturing is geared toward doing stuff cheaply, and not well. Some company simply buy what the factory offers without caring about these things.

But it all depends. There is also very good stuff made there. Sometimes the brand is heavily involved in manufacture in China, and controls the process. Some brands/purchasers have very tight quality goals, instill ethics in their foreign factories and care about the potential impact of poor quality on the value of their brand. Some design the process in the factory, have people in country to monitor, etc. For me, it depends on whether the brand is merely a consumer of product made in China or whether the brand itself manufactures in China with a closely controlled partnership or brand-owned factory.

I toured a Chinese sock factory there where they contracted to make the Gold Toe brand of sock. They also used a different part of the factory for their own brand. The quality of their own brand was terrible. Cheaper thread, worse weave, on older less capable machines. But the Gold Toe side put out good stuff. The people from Gold Toe regularly inspected, helped design the process, specified which machines had to be used, etc. They don't mess around, and I came away more willing to buy Gold Toe products, not less. So sometimes a brand name is more than a marketing tool, but an actual sign to the consumer that the product is a quality product.