Moving production to China is often (but not always) a cost-cutting measure. It's often about volume - Chinese manufacturers can scale production in a way that

Moving production to China is often (but not always) a cost-cutting measure. It's often about volume - Chinese manufacturers can scale production in a way that Western manufacturers can't. They have shorter and more agile supply chains and a much deeper labour pool. Scaling up production always carries the risk of quality degradation, mostly because you're diluting the skill base of your manufacturing workforce. China can't match the quality of the very best German and Japanese manufacturers, but they're pretty damned close in a lot of areas. Quality usually starts to slip because the OEM customer demands it - cutting corners to keep the price down is usually the more profitable option.