Are there people who think that anything manufactured in China is considered junk including certain lamps and fixtures that are designed in other countries but assembled in China?

Hey guys what's up? This is interesting, I WANT to believe this.....as bad as that seems, however plain as day comparison my USA made Sylvania Double Life Halogen 43 watt/60 watt replacement bulbs which I currently run upwards of 40 PROUDLY and are manufactured in my state I believe Pennsylvania......next to my parents latest GE HD Refresh bulbs.....the China bulbs win. The bases....my bulbs bases have crinkles and sloppy solder, the HD's have absolutely flawless gorgeous silver colored metal bases with a perfectly centered silver electrode not a drop of solder. I mean it looks like fine China (LOL)..... The lead wires. Mine are bare, the HD's have silicone insulation.....it looks gorgeous....the frosting. Mine is sloppy and blotchy, there is perfect, the chinese look like a cnc machine frosted it or a fine artist. THe writing ontop. None of my bulbs are the same, each oen is faded broken and has some part unreadable. It looks as if it's saying "Sylvania USA Halogen" half heartedly and is pathetic. The HD LED's each one has PERFECT FLAWLESS DEEP writing that is flawless i mean perfection. This scares me, it makes me want to switch. But I have not yet and continue to run incandescent proudly. It only makes me wish I'd decided and hoarded back decades ago as I bet the quality was on par, the true incandescent could hold it's own with quality vs the LED, its just these were an afterthought, a quick means of matching the new regulations. It sucks but I fear this is the case! 

Walmart has USA assembled LED filament lamps. 

Walmart has USA assembled LED filament lamps. 

All the LEDs and CFLs here are chinese, only few halogen bulbs are made in Holland or Hungary. 

Back in the day there were more lamps made in Poland and other countries.

China has generally a huge amount of people. That implies many things.
First it means there is huge amount of people willing to work for very low wages. That makes them very attractive.
Second it means the pool to select engineering talents is huge, so even with low education efficacy, they have huge army of engineers.
And it means only very few top percent of population becomes an engineer, so they have way better personal capabilities than an average western engineer (because way bigger fraction of the western population reach these positions).
Then the people there are very unwilling to refuse to do what is asked from them, even when that means to deliver cr@ppy work if asked to by morons wanting to save pennies by cutting corners so much the result becomes real garbage. For them that is what the customer asked for. In western world suppliers are used to refuse the service, if the condition (include the price) means the quality wont meet the standard of that maker.

The consequence is, the manufacture there is cheap.
They are able in a way more efficient ways to save manufacturing costs with less impact on product quality. Many times met an original expensive western product being cheapened out both in China and Europe (Germany? Not sure), then both being manufactured in China. The one with the optimizations  engineered in China becomes way more reliable and generally better quality than the one in Europe. The Chinese version was very cheaply made, but no clear design errors (which kill the quality but do not reduce cost at all), unlike the western counterpart (which had to use way more expensive components to make it usable at least somehow).
And if asked to (and paid for, of course), Chinese are way more than capable to deliver high quality. They are just not "asked" in consumer goods manufacture.

So the real quality problem tgat could be generalized really is, Chinese will cheapen it out beyond sane level if you put insane price requirement, they wont refuse to make it. So it falls mainly on the greedy western traders, who exploit that, then import that garbage and then blame China for the bad quality. It are the western companies, who asked for the goods to be garbage in the first place, not Chinese supppiers.
Somewhere in the past there may have been an excuse of the inexperience of the traders with the cultural differences in expectations of all parties (however I would see that as highly unproffesional for a proffessional trader to not be aware of cultural specifics affecting the deal), but after two decades of this business, there is no such excuse anymore.

Wonderful explanation man, thank you! As always 

Lamp wise there are decent well established factory’s in China that DO make excellent lamps, but the problem with China is there’s literally thousands of ‘back street’ manufacturers that don’t have the right equipment, or knowledge and skills to make stuff that lasts, and this poor quality stuff sadly is the stuff bought the most by the west!

It’s this merchandise that then gives lighting such as LED a bad name here in the west, but once you’re familiar with who makes the good stuff, you never have early failures with lamps you use.

There are tons of "backstreet" manufacturers with LED, because once you have the LED components, it really does not need that much specialized equipment (beyond what a general electronic shop has). But the problem are not these backstreet makers, problem are the greedy traders, who buy from them. And who are the first one to brag about "their product being quality even when cheap".

中国有句老话叫“一分钱一分货”，你给厂家多少钱就是啥样的质量，其实中国早期的产品质量还是非常好的，只是不会出口，只在国内销售。

There are tons of "backstreet" manufacturers with LED, because once you have the LED components, it really does not need that much specialized equipment (beyond what a general electronic shop has). But the problem are not these backstreet makers, problem are the greedy traders, who buy from them. And who are the first one to brag about "their product being quality even when cheap".

Yeah, I was referring to LED filament lamps and the backstreet manufacturers that can certainly put a lamp together, component wise, but then lack the specialist gassing equipment to fill the outer bulbs to keep the filaments cool, I believe there’s quite a few in China like that.
However on the quality side, I have LED lamps made by Xiamen Yankon Energetic Lighting company LTD in China, and one of these in full time use in my house is now well over 39,000 hours in service and STILL going strong today!