Originally Posted by
skookum
Chinese QC can be poor. Stuff made for the Chinese domestic market can be awful, but the same company making products for the western markets can be really good, the QC is better because western buyers demand more. I had a friend who ran a small factory in Kunshan. He said it wasn't hard to compete with Chinese products, because he didn't cut corners, unlike his competitors.
I bought a really good set of carbon rims from China, I couldn't get them from anywhere else, the quality is top notch, but they weren't cheap. If you are willing to pay what you would in Europe or North America you can find excellent quality. If you buy cheap crap from Aliexpress, then you get what you pay for.
Keyword here is 'can be'. It's certainly not always, or even often, the case anymore. Having lived in China for 14 years now, I can speak to the fact that plenty of Chinese brands are decent quality, even for the domestic market. The rapid improvement of quality in Chinese domestic goods, especially in industries like auto manufacturing and mobile electronics, over the last few years has been very impressive.
I buy lots of stuff off of Taobao (the domestic version of AliExpress) for my bike, much of it from local brands, and it's almost always good. The key is making sure to buy from a reputable seller and buying products which have a high sales volume and decent reviews.