"Chinese Tolerance", 2015+. Kizer, Reate, etc.

R

RBid

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This thread is not anti-China. The title was a bit of a play on the parallel of Ti framelocks flooding out of China and Tualatin, with a nod to the somewhat common U.S. preference of avoiding Chinese made products when possible.

I am posting here because I find that the recent flood of high quality Chinese knives has actually caused me to think about a broad range of relationships: global vs local economics, competition, production sourcing, etc. I don't own any of these at the moment, and as of the time of this writing, I neither know nor care if I ever will. That is to say, I have no emotion invested in favoring or disdaining them.

What I am interested in is how you all feel about the position of these companies as competitors in the market and potential catalysts for change in the industry. How do you all feel about them in relation to Spyderco, Benchmade, ZT, Hinderer, CRK, Strider, etc? Do you anticipate their current status evolving or forcing evolution? How do you anticipate their impact on smaller companies trying to gain a foothold (Brous trying to gain traction with a Bionic 2.0 at $159 vs Chinese Ti & S35VN for similar money, etc)?

Looking ahead 5 and 10 years, what do you anticipate the industry looking like?
 
They can and do make some very nice high quality products.

People either forget or don't understand that the quality requirements are set by the ones that are having the products made, not by the ones actually making them.

So if a Company wants to produce a high quality product and use a factory in China to do so they can.

Personally I think it will have even more of an effect, more so in the future as time goes on.
 
I think china can and does make a great product. But i also think some chinese manufacturers are increasing their prices a bit prematurely. The real draw wasnt just that china started making high end knives but that tere was a considerable price difference for quality and materials on par wih U.S. Manufacturing. If the prices rise to the point there is no longer a price advantage i dont think they will remain popular. The only way they can pull it off would be if quality actually started to be significantly better than our own. In other words even if reate makes every bit as good of a knife as benchmade or zero tolerance i dont think many will continue to choose reate if they are no longer saving money.
 
Real competition is usually a win for the consumers. Hopefully if companies like Reate continue to make the high quality knives they currently are making other knife companies will step up their game also.
 
Thank you for the replies so far, gentlemen.

As I alluded to in the original post, the high quality was a big part of what set me to thinking about this.

One of the specific things that hit me was this:

These companies appear to be getting it right *consistently*, much like ZT, BM, Spyderco, etc. They are also doing it at generally aggressive prices. So, let's look at companies like Strider. The SnG is a very popular design. The common barriers there are price (for many, obviously not all) and consistency with lock up and such. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that a company like Reate or Horizon could "build a better [read as: more consistent] SnG", and deliver around $200. If they were to do so, and given the way subsets of the community feel about Burger, then I could see huge problems for Strider.

This makes me wonder how companies like Strider will be effected. Will they tighten QC? Will they drop prices over time? Will they begin licensing a la Hinderer/ZT and Emerson/ZT? Could these companies get Walmarted into oblivion?
 
I'm just happy to see knives come out of China that are not counterfeits. It's refreshing to see nice designs and higher quality materials used.
 
The US trade deficit is $43 billion per year, and the deficit just on goods is $62 billion (we have a services surplus that makes up the difference). 80% of the trade deficit is trade with China. We export $197 billion in goods and services, but import $241 billion.

Long story short, American consumers have long ago decided they love Chinese and foreign made goods, and knives are certainly no different than anything else. We like Chinese quality for out blenders, baby seats, iPhones and fire extinguishers. Poorly made Chinese products are no worse than poorly made US products, both of which are still common - we aren't Switzerland, where every product is top quality.

There is nothing special about knives made in any country. No amount of rhetoric is going to change the overwhelming American urge to screw the future for a discount today and the percentage of US made cutlery will continue to shrink. Efforts on knife boards to shame members into buying American will have zero net effect on total sales for just knives, let alone all consumer goods.

You can buy top quality from anywhere. Pick whatever you want - it simply doesn't matter anymore.
 
RX-79G,

I am unsure if you were referencing the general practice of shaming, or if you interpreted anything in this thread to be shaming and were calling that out. I can't speak for anyone else, but I am pointedly NOT pro- or anti- China. This discussion is intended to see how others anticipate the impact of quality products from China influencing the evolution of the market.

You did point out one of your expectations, of course. I appreciate that.
 
As well as being a knife guy, I am into cars even more. For a long time, China has made "fakes" or copies of cars. Now they are working on making their own designs. 5-10 years we may be seeing them here. It seems to me that China is trying to lose the stigma of being known for fakes and bad quality. For me, the biggest issue in buying goods from China is that there are no labor laws and no pollution control. Its not just China; It is a recurring theme in southeast asia.

My hope is that Kizer and the like have better ethical standards.
 
RBid said:
RX-79G,

I am unsure if you were referencing the general practice of shaming, or if you interpreted anything in this thread to be shaming and were calling that out. I can't speak for anyone else, but I am pointedly NOT pro- or anti- China. This discussion is intended to see how others anticipate the impact of quality products from China influencing the evolution of the market.

You did point out one of your expectations, of course. I appreciate that.
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Hi RBid,

I wasn't calling out you or any other poster on this thread. I am calling out a general tendency on this forum to pretend that Chinese products aren't excellent and that US consumers aren't primarily responsible for Chinese products usurping US products in both price and quality. We did this to ourselves, so I find it immensely disingenuous and belated to complain that people are buying Chinese knives. The 1970s might have been a better time to have that particular conversation. And I thought that fit with your "global relationships" discussion.

As far as a shift - tiny niche knife companies will always get talked about. CRK will continue to sell US made stuff to their tiny, tiny demographic. More flag waving brands like ZT will emerge - backed by large companies like Kershaw that made their fortunes selling US consumers Chinese products.

There will be the appearance of change, but the main story will be more Camillus and Schrade type factory closings. Kabar, Buck, Spyderco, Gerber, etc will become US companies by virtue of their majority stock ownership - and little more. They'll mostly be US warehouses with a warranty department and custom shop. As their US employees are quietly retired, we will laud their innovation and quality "despite" Chinese production (and design). Knife buyers will remain enthusiastic, a few thousand metal workers will completely fail to train a new generation as they retire or go into some sort of white collar unskilled labor.

At some point we'll be complaining that hardly anyone can afford a decent knife anymore, and most the CRK's will be exported to be snapped up by the vibrant Chinese middle class. It should result in a great renaissance of blacksmithing in the former US.
 
A CNC machine doesn't know what country it's producing knives in. There's so much nationalistic attitude that comes into play when people see these very well made knives coming from GASP, China! The more competition will be better for all of us.
 
^ I think cnc machines really made the difference in quality knives like Reate and Kizer. without them, they would not have advanced into making knives that compete with the rest of the world. The district 9 ,horizon, for example are as good if not better than anything made here or anywhere else. they can only improve and get better .
 
China's quality can only increase. The materials they use will always be questionable regardless of what anyone tries to claim. Once they flood the market with their products, prices will be too competitive for similarly designed products from American made companies. Only innovative or unique products will be able to rise above, but will cost significantly more. Enthusiast will continue to pursue limited, unique, and innovative products for their collection. The general mass, the main source of income for most manufacturing, will buy whatever is the best bang-for-the-buck.

For example, a titanium frame lock flipper with caged bearings and D2 steel blade can be had for $60. A carbon fiber sub-frame lock flipper with caged bearing and S35VN steel blade can be had for $130. Which American company can compete with that? If the Chinese can flood the knife market with these, what can you do to stop them from taking over? Nothing. The only reason I would think that they don't do it right now is because they can make way more money in the sub $200 market. I could be way wrong, but it's one man's opinion.
 
China can produce anything in whatever quality you want if you are willing to pay for it.

If they can make an iPhone 6 they can make a pocket knife.
 
RX-79G said:
I am calling out a general tendency on this forum to pretend that Chinese products aren't excellent and that US consumers aren't primarily responsible for Chinese products usurping US products in both price and quality. We did this to ourselves, so I find it immensely disingenuous and belated to complain that people are buying Chinese knives. The 1970s might have been a better time to have that particular conversation. And I thought that fit with your "global relationships" discussion.
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Yep we did it to ourselves as a Country, started in the Auto Industry as the US makers were making garbage and the Japanese all but took that over and more than one American Car company went under, others had to be bailed out, some more than once. They all did that to themselves, but now some of the Japanese companies are suffering the same fates for the same reasons, making the same mistakes. Funny how things keep going around and around repeating themselves.

Electronics, same story, same mistakes.

The biggest issue is pricing, people want cheap and that is the biggest problem and most of the reason why we are in the situation that we are in now, that and Corporate greed. Combine both of those together and we have serious issues, and we are all starting to feel the result of that these days. Those fat cat Corporate people still want to make those HUGE paychecks and the customers want cheap products, well we are seeing the result of that problem.

I remember about 30 years ago some smart guy was talking about how expensive those cheap products will end up being and he was 100% correct, they are more expensive than most people will ever believe they really are.
 
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Ankerson said:
Yep we did it to ourselves as a Country, started in the Auto Industry as the US makers were making garbage and the Japanese all but took that over and more than one American Car company went under, others had to be bailed out, some more than once. They all did that to themselves, but now some of the Japanese companies are suffering the same fates for the same reasons, making the same mistakes. Funny how things keep going around and around repeating themselves.

Electronics, same story, same mistakes.

The biggest issue is pricing, people want cheap and that is the biggest problem and most of the reason why we are in the situation that we are in now, that and Corporate greed. Combine both of those together and we have serious issues, and we are all starting to feel the result of that these days. Those fat cat Corporate people still want to make those HUGE paychecks and the customers want cheap products, well we are seeing the result of that problem.

I remember about 30 years ago some smart guy was talking about how expensive those cheap products will end up being and he was 100% correct, they are more expensive than most people will ever believe they really are.
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I would just clarify two things:

I have watched this same progression in the bicycle industry. It goes like this:
China is crap. China is okay for the cheap stuff. Hey, China does well for high end, and at a great price. Oop, everything is Chinese, and it isn't cheap anymore.

A $200 Reate is probably fully ridiculous, considering where it is made and the wages involved. But people will be lining up for $400 Chinese knives in a year or two, and telling themselves the same BS about "it's the design that matters" or "at least it is a US company".


The other thing is that "Corporate Greed" misses the real problem. The truth is that corporations are legal entities like you and me, but exist only to make profits. And unlike you and me, a corporation can eject any part of itself anytime that part doesn't fulfill the purpose of making profits. A corporation will happily commit suicide if it is part of a larger corporation that needs it to. Corporations don't behave like people. Yet we keep expecting them to, despite being a completely different lifeform that doesn't have to have legal citizenship, doesn't get old and never needs the support of a larger community. Corporations cannot help but downsize, outsource or coerce because that is their nature. The employees and public share owners of a corporation can only limit that to an extent.

The US is responsible for that too, when we made corporations a type of person.

Which all begs the question: Why should anyone care about the 'citizenship' of a company? Only the employees of the company matter. Currently, US consumers prefer to support Chinese workers more than any other, while telling ourselves that making a tiny number of executives and shareholders wealthy is somehow "stimulating" our economy.
 
I have no problem with china products, as long as they are not destroying the many small businesses and artisanship that are so common over there. we never had any heavy industry apart from cars, so good electric and electronic products coming from china are welcome in my house, but when possible I try to support local businesses. So, for instance, there are some Italian brands that still forge good quality axes and tools for like 20 - 30 euros, so I try to buy from them even if they cost a few more than chinese or pakistani ones, just because I don't want to be forced, in the future, to choose between cheap chinese or over-expensive scandinavian ones.
And then I don't want to lose part of the history and culture of my country.
 
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