中国作为世界工厂，为全世界生产各种各样的商品，从廉价商品到奢侈品。有些很便宜，有些很贵，有些质量很差，有些质量很好。作为世界工厂，中国有能力制造几乎所有种类的产品。有一个概念叫做设计出质量。如果你想销售产品，作为产品所有者，你要设计产品是什么，消费者是谁，产品是如何制造的，以及消费者享受什么样的服务。在这个周期中，中国的作用主要是在制造业，质量也去取决于设计者的需求。我们既能制造出高精度的产品，也能制造廉价的商品，这完全取决于客户的需求。中国有句古话说得好，一分钱一分货，说的就是这个道理。在美国知乎上就有这样一个话题常年霸榜引起众多国外网友的谈论，话题内容为： 为什么“中国制造”的产品总是与质量差联系在一起?
在这个话题中有不少国外网友用事实举例来证明这个话题的片面性。让我们来看看他们是怎么说的吧
话题：为什么“中国制造”的产品总是与质量差联系在一起?
意大利网友的观点
Let me get this off my chest. Even if the quality is low, don’t blame China. The poor quality is mostly a request -in order to save money- by foreign importers. The cheap stuff will be poor in quality, but what did you expect?
让我把心里话说出来。即使质量很低，也不要怪中国。质量差主要是外国进口商为了省钱而提出的要求。便宜的东西质量会很差，但你还指望什么呢?
Believe it or not, but in the 1960’s Japan faced the same problem. Product labeled ‘made in Japan’ were seen as poor or poorly made. It took them less than two decades to turn the label into a sign of sought-after quality.
信不信由你，20世纪60年代的日本也面临着同样的问题。被贴上“日本制造”标签的产品被视为劣质产品。他们用了不到20年的时间就把这个标签变成了一个品质受人追捧的标志。
曾经日本人制造的玩具
China has a great work-culture and an outstanding executive management class. They produce whatever you agree upon. Perfectly.
中国有伟大的工作文化和优秀的行政管理阶层。他们产生你同意的任何东西。完美。
I offer my comments, reflecting on my experience, which likely includes my western capitalistic bias.
我根据自己的经历发表了自己的看法，其中可能包括我的西方资本主义偏见。
Most of what I am about to write concerns older Chinese industry , certainly not applicable to the newer electronics and cell phones and such built in China. This story is just one small microcosm of global business, non ferrous metals.
我将要写的大部分内容都是关于中国的老工业，当然不适用于中国制造的新电子产品和手机等产品。这个故事只是全球有色金属行业的一个小缩影。
I have spent the past 17 years working with Chinese factories to supply raw material for our US factories. The sources of this unique product from US are all closed or out of business in this market, so I have spent much time in China at many factories, evaluating technical capability, manufacturing discipline that I am familiar with here in US and Europe. Also, I have looked in Europe, Eastern Europe, India, and Korea and have a fairly well drawn picture of global capability north of the equator with respect to the industrial product I am sourcing.
在过去的17年里，我一直与中国工厂合作，为我们的美国工厂提供原材料。这种来自美国的独特产品的来源在这个市场上都关闭或关闭了，所以我花了很多时间在中国的许多工厂，评估我在美国和欧洲熟悉的技术能力和制造纪律。此外，我还考察了欧洲、东欧、印度和韩国，对赤道以北地区的工业产品的全球生产能力有了相当好的了解。
I see considerable variation in capability and performance in the Chinese mills around the country. In general, much of the equipment was imported from closed US factories or bought new from Japan, or Europe, etc -- these were mostly state owned mills.
我看到中国各地钢厂的能力和性能存在很大差异。总的来说，大部分设备是从关闭的美国工厂进口的，或者从日本、欧洲等地购买的——这些大多是国有工厂。
My experience with the state owned mills can be summarized in the basic lack of initiative to improve by most of the managers and technical staff. They had low pay and no incentive to improve and optimize processes ( continuous improvement), as I have been so familiar with here in US , so at some times quality would be OK and other simple cosmetic issues that could be fixed quickly in a motivated western mill would never be addressed.
我在国有钢厂的经验可以总结为，大多数管理人员和技术人员基本缺乏改进的主动性。他们的工资很低，没有改进和优化流程的动力(持续改进)，就像我在美国所熟悉的那样，所以有时质量还可以，而其他一些简单的装饰性问题，在西方的工厂里可以很快解决，却永远不会得到解决。
I met with a lot of good, knowledgeable, and capable professionals, but the lack of initiative could never sustain an effective continuous improvement program needed to produce consistent high quality materials.
我遇到了很多优秀的，有知识的，有能力的专业人员，但是缺乏主动性永远不能维持有效的持续改进程序，需要生产一致的高质量的材料。
Privatizing some of these state own factories is changing the picture as the Chinese seems to be grasping and utilizing the positive and best parts of capitalism to the advantage of the industrial sectors in China. One of the old state mills I worked with was privatized and failed fairly quickly, because the work culture with management was not taught to deal with "the new way" . On the other hand , some private factories managed by a profit motivated management are dong quite well with respect to quality, factories are beautifully laid out and there is understanding of the value of product quality.
随着中国似乎抓住并利用资本主义的积极和最好的部分，使中国工业部门的优势，一些国有工厂的私有化正在改变局面。我曾经工作过的一家旧国有工厂被私有化了，很快就倒闭了，因为管理方面的工作文化没有被教授如何应对“新方式”。另一方面，一些以利润为导向的私营工厂在质量方面做得很好，工厂布局漂亮，人们对产品的价值有理解。
As a final point (my opinion only), many Western buyers and corporations were drawn to China many years ago by the extreme relative low labor cost and were able to make marked improvements in profits by purchasing VERY low cost materials from China. AND they were blindly willing to accept lower quality than they would from their own US factories, and so the Chinese factories weren't pushed for fear of rising prices. In this event, the western capitalistic greed for profits actually promoted lower quality to be acceptable in Western markets.
最后一点(仅我个人观点)，许多西方买家和企业多年前就被中国相对较低的劳动力成本所吸引，并能够通过从中国购买非常低成本的材料来显著提高利润。他们盲目地愿意接受比他们自己的美国工厂更低的质量，所以中国工厂不会因为担心价格上涨而被迫接受。在这种情况下，西方资本主义对利润的贪婪实际上促进了较低的质量在西方市场上被接受。
Across the world, we are all beings of the human race, with similar abilities to learn, to make mistakes and even fail, with no one country or race better or worse than anyone else. We are all driven by our motivations, whatever they may be. I am still learning, probably at a faster rate than ever until my time runs out.
在世界各地，我们都是人类，有着相似的学习能力，犯错能力，甚至失败能力，没有哪个国家或种族比其他任何国家或种族更好或更差。我们都被自己的动机所驱使，不管动机是什么。我还在学习，可能还在以前所未有的速度学习，直到我的时间耗尽。
新加坡网友的观点
Yes, they are.
是的，他们的质量不好
And it's by design, not because Chinese just suck at making things despite our best efforts.
这是设计使然，不是因为中国人不擅长制造东西，尽管我们尽了最大努力。
The vast majority of Chinese imports that reach Western retail consumers to form this opinion are mass market products that were never meant to be of particularly high quality.
西方零售消费者认为，绝大多数从中国进口的产品都是大众市场的产品，它们的质量从来就不是特别高。
作者的缝纫机，这是多少人的回忆。
ou have to realize that prior to China becoming the world's factory, things were generally a lot more expensive. Everything from textiles to home appliances, made in the US and Western Europe, were quite expensive since cheap labor wasn't a thing yet.
你必须意识到，在中国成为世界工厂之前，东西通常要贵得多。从纺织品到家用电器，美国和西欧制造的一切都非常昂贵，因为那时还没有廉价劳动力。
Moreover, the vast majority of Chinese manufactured products are produced under Western brand names, and it's these companies that specify what they want from the factory and what quality they want it at. If they're Apple and they want top of the line, they get top of the line. If they're Walmart and they want shit that barely works, then they get shit that barely works. Chinese factories are good at delivering what was ordered, right down to how many days the product will last before failing miserably. It just so happens that until recently, the majority of the things being ordered from Chinese factories has been on the low end of the scale.
此外，绝大多数中国制造的产品都是以西方品牌的名义生产的，正是这些公司明确了他们想从工厂得到什么，以及他们想要的质量。如果他们是苹果公司，他们想要最好的产品，他们就能得到最好的产品。如果他们是沃尔玛，他们想要一些几乎没用的东西，那他们就会得到一些几乎没用的东西。中国工厂很擅长交付订单，甚至能知道产品可以使用多少天，然后才会严重失败。直到最近，从中国工厂订购的大部分产品都属于低端产品。
苹果CEO库克在与富士康员工交谈甚欢
But that's changing. It's getting harder to find truly appaling death traps being made in China anymore. The cost of labor is too high for that to be economically sensical. A lot of the shitty stuff people think are made in China are not actually made in China. And a lot of the really nice luxury-tier items labeled as being not made in China were actually made in China. It seems to be a reputation that's reaching its end assuming the media doesn't do more to keep pushing it.
但这种情况正在改变。越来越难找到真正令人震惊的中国制造的死亡陷阱了。劳动力成本太高，在经济上不合理。许多人们认为是中国制造的劣质产品实际上并不是中国制造的。许多标有非中国制造标签的非常好的奢侈品实际上是中国制造的。假设媒体不采取更多措施继续推动，这种声誉似乎就要走到尽头了。
美国网友的观点
China is the world’s factory.
中国是世界工厂。
Exporters of products made in China, determine the quality of the products they export as it determines their margin and the proposed retail price of such products.
中国制造产品的出口商决定其出口产品的质量，因为这决定了他们的利润率和此类产品的建议零售价格。
Hundreds of exporters who want to sell their products in Walmart stores must offer the lowest wholesale-retail prices. Therefore their focus is low price ….. NOT quality.
数以百计的出口商想要在沃尔玛商店销售他们的产品，必须提供最低的批发-零售价格。因此，他们的重点是低价.....没有质量。
(Side note: for a large percentage of the people, wages in the US have been stagnant for the last 20 years for many reasons. Walmart has been providing ever lower prices to Americans because they are selling low-priced products made in China. Without those priced products the average US worker would have a much harder time making ends meet.)
(附注:对于很大一部分人来说，美国的工资在过去20年里停滞不前，原因有很多。沃尔玛一直在向美国人提供更低的价格，因为他们销售中国制造的低价产品。如果没有这些定价产品，普通美国工人将很难维持生计。)
Most Chinese brand manufacturers mainly sell to the domestic Chinese market. The domestic market is also largely price sensitive. Other manufacturers in China are OEM manufactures for international brand companies ….. as either entire products or parts.
大多数中国品牌制造商主要销往中国国内市场。国内市场在很大程度上也对价格敏感。中国的其他制造商是国际品牌公司的贴牌加工制造商.....作为整个产品或部分。
Therefore exporters can either buy higher or lower quality goods depending on what market they are selling to.
因此，出口商可以购买高质量或低质量的产品，这取决于他们销售给什么市场。
As example ….. you should know, basically all personal computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones regardless of the brand are made in China, including many internal parts.
例如......你应该知道，基本上所有的个人电脑、笔记本电脑、平板电脑和智能手机，无论品牌如何，都是中国制造的，包括许多内部零件。
In addition ….. Lenovo is a Chinese brand, as are Haier appliance, Gree air conditioners, Huawei smartphones, Hisense TV’s, Midea appliances, etc.
除了……联想是中国品牌，海尔电器、格力空调、华为智能手机、海信电视、美的电器等也是中国品牌。
Do you know they also manufacture parts for airplanes for example ….. from Boeing to Airbus …. Or Harley Davidson motorcycles. They also produce cars for Honda, Ford, General Motors, Audi etc.
你知道他们也生产飞机零件吗，比如.....从波音到空客....或者哈雷戴维森摩托车。他们还为本田、福特、通用、奥迪等生产汽车
China can produce anything from whole products for the developing world to the developed world. What you see as Chinese products will depend upon those who import what products or parts into your country.
中国可以为发展中国家生产从完整产品到发达国家的任何产品。你对中国产品的看法取决于哪些产品或零部件进口到你的国家。
美国西雅图网友的观点
First off, I hate questions like this. People need to understand, if you’re smart, you’ll see right through this type of question.
首先，我讨厌这样的问题。人们需要明白，如果你聪明，你会看穿这类问题。
So, I’ll subvert the conversation and answer the way I see fit.
所以，我会以我认为合适的方式回答来颠覆这个话题。
Two parts:
- 两部分
Why are most products “Made in China”?
为什么大多数产品都是“中国制造”?
China has evolved out of a century of chaos (what I call the “Century of Shame” - because the chaos was more harmful than the shame) and has seized the reigns of its own destiny.
中国已经走出了一个世纪的混乱(我称之为“耻辱的世纪”——因为混乱比耻辱更有害)，并掌握了自己的命运。
Because, culturally, Chinese are some of the most pragmatic people on Earth, part of that seizure of control has been to focus on engineering and science. It was clear that the only reasons the puny Western powers such as Great Britain were able to colonize great portions of the globe was that they had a strong military and a superior grasp of technology and science.
因为，从文化上讲，中国人是地球上最务实的民族之一，控制的一部分是专注于工程和科学。很明显，像英国这样弱小的西方大国能够殖民全球大部分地区的唯一原因是他们拥有强大的军事力量和先进的技术和科学。
China already had a strong military, so the next logical step was to focus on technology and science as part of their evolution. And it’s been very successful.
中国已经有了强大的军事力量，所以下一步自然是把重点放在技术和科学上，作为他们发展的一部分。它非常成功。
With that knowledge, China has applied the strength of numbers (in 2015, a record 7.49 million people graduated in China with advanced degrees[1] - that’s more than the entire population of Hong Kong or Switzerland). Smart, well-educated and driven people in great enough numbers will accomplish whatever they set their minds to.
有了这些知识，中国利用了数字的优势(2015年，中国有749万人获得了高等学位，这比香港或瑞士的总人口还多)。很多聪明、受过良好教育、有进取心的人会完成他们下定决心要做的任何事情。
That, combined with low labor costs, allowed China to leapfrog many of its competitors to become one of the top manufacturing countries in the world.
再加上低廉的劳动力成本，让中国超越了许多竞争对手，成为世界上最大的制造业国家之一。
In fact, in some areas of production, China leads the entire planet. For example, large-scale simulation and structural testing (e.g., gigantic vibration tables) - if you want to perform some of these tests, no one else has them. You’ll have to go to China to do it.
事实上，在某些生产领域，中国领先于整个地球。例如，大规模模拟和结构测试（例如，巨大的振动台）——如果你想执行其中的一些测试，其他人都没有。你必须去中国做这件事。
So, as China moves into other territories like semiconductor manufacture and commercial aircraft production, all I can say is that Boeing and Airbus and Intel and AMD had better up their game, or they’ll be sidelined next.
因此，随着中国进入半导体制造和商用飞机生产等其他领域，我只能说，波音、空客、英特尔和AMD最好加强他们的行当，否则他们下一个就会被边缘化。
Why are Chinese products of substandard quality?
为什么中国产品质量不合格?
Chinese products are not of any less quality as an aggregate than similar products made anywhere else.
中国产品总体上的质量并不比其他地方生产的同类产品低。
Those of us born in North America who are old enough to remember the 50s and 60s, also remember the aftermath of WWII and the Korean Conflict. As the countries devastated by war rebuilt themselves, they went through their “product export economy” phases.
我们这些出生在北美的人，年龄足够大，记得50年代和60年代，也记得二战和朝鲜冲突的后果。随着被战争摧毁的国家进行重建，它们经历了“产品出口经济”阶段。
Each of these, whether Japan or Korea, or Vietnam - all began by using cheap exported manufactured goods to build up their economies at home, first.
每一个国家，无论是日本还是韩国越南——首先都是通过使用廉价的出口制成品来发展本国经济。
I think we all agree that Samsung, Kia, Toyota and Sony are examples of well-engineered products nowadays. Microsoft Mobile Oy (what used to be Nokia Mobile Oy) and Motorola (which is now owned by Lenovo) both manufactured excellent product in Vietnam, and continue to do so.
我想我们都同意三星、起亚、丰田和索尼是当今设计精良的产品的例子。微软(过去的诺基亚)和摩托罗拉(现在归联想所有)都在越南生产优秀的产品，并将继续这样做。
So, too, did China in the late 80’s and early 90’s, until they got their industry up to speed. In fact, they did it remarkably quickly (remember what I said about the power of a large number of smart, driven people?).
中国在80年代末90年代初也是如此，直到他们的工业赶上了速度。事实上，他们做到这一点的速度非常快(还记得我说过的大量聪明、有干劲的人的力量吗?)
In any case, the era of cheap exports are over - China has definitely moved into the age of well-engineered exports.
无论如何，廉价出口的时代已经结束——中国肯定已经进入了精心设计的出口时代。
An example: I work for an engineering consulting company; we design and build all kinds of embedded systems for various other companies.
举个例子:我在一家工程咨询公司工作;我们为其他各种公司设计和构建各种嵌入式系统。
We have a project right now for a client who requires a fast chemical-vapor deposition in production quality and quantity. This isn’t a laboratory project, this is for a factory.
我们现在有一个客户的项目，他需要快速的化学气相沉积在生产质量和数量。这不是实验室项目，这是工厂项目。
I searched high and low for equipment to do this. Several companies in Europe sell CVD equipment, as do a couple in North America.
我到处寻找这样做的设备。欧洲的几家公司销售CVD设备，北美的几家公司也是如此。
But - with a couple of notable exceptions, ALL of the actual hardware is being produced in China. Even the Raman spectrometer microscopy equipment that the client needs to verify product quality is being made in China. It’s all ISO 9000-standards based manufacture; so the quality bar is high.
但是，除了几个明显的例外，所有实际的硬件都是在中国生产的。甚至客户需要验证产品质量的拉曼光谱仪显微镜设备也是中国制造的。都是基于ISO 9000标准的制造;所以质量标准是很高的。
I have no choice but to go to China to buy it - the exceptions I mentioned are both way too expensive and are basically lab equipment, not for production quantities. This is some cutting-edge stuff.
我别无选择，只能去中国买——我提到的例外都太贵了，而且基本上都是实验室设备，不能用于批量生产。这是一些尖端的东西。
Fortunately, our client’s manufacturing facility is not in the US or Canada, so they aren’t concerned with Mussolini and his stupid trade-war. If we were, we’d be screwed because we’d have no choices.
幸运的是，我们客户的制造工厂不在美国或加拿大，所以他们不关心墨索里尼和他愚蠢的贸易战。如果是的话，我们就完蛋了，因为我们别无选择。
Anyway, that about sums it up - China has become the high-tech manufacturing center for the world, and simultaneously raised the quality bar.
无论如何，这就是总结——中国已经成为世界高科技制造中心，同时提高了质量标准。