Reply #16: No, this is the same complaint about Japanese Junk in the 1950s [View All]

The Japanese in the 1950s were more worried about getting into the US Market then anything else and willing to do so by undercutting everyone else's prices (and the quality controls that produced the higher costs AND better products). It was more an effort to get Americans to buy Japanese products then anything else.

Only in the 1960s and 1970s that the Japanese started to ship over their better made products in mass (The Japanese has ALWAYS shipped their better made products to the US, but compared to low quality items these were few in numbers in the 1950s). Combined with the gas crisis of the 1970s (Which the Japanese fully exploited in regards to Sub-Compact cars) this greater acceptance of Japanese better made goods into the US economy even more acceptable (The habit of the US to leave their service men during the Vietnam War to buy massive amount of Japanese made goods without having to pay to ship them back to the US also helped the Japanese).

Thus by the mid 1970s the days of looking at Japanese Products as Junk was long gone, the Japanese even stopped shipping their junk to the US (Leaving that market to Taiwan and the other Asia Tigers). China appears to be following the same route, get Americans use to buying Chinese goods as substantial savings, and then bring in the better made goods once their competitors are out of Business.