The Chinese are taking over.

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Hickory n steel said:
This only really applies to the " latest and greatest " modern folders with flippers...ect.
Traditionals and fixed blades will always be the best values in cutlery.

Ask yourself this question
if you only had 25$ to spend on a brand new EDC knife and nothing more would you buy a " decent " modern Chinese flipper, or a 100% American made case sodbuster ?
Do you care so much about modern features that you'll give in and go Chinese, or sacrifice features and buy the American made knife.
American made knives with features you want may not always be affordable , but at that point you can still get an American made knife if you sacrifice features and fancy materials.

This is just an extreme example, but it will tell you how strongly you feel about buying American when it comes to getting a brand new knife off the shelf.
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Or you could spend $10 and get a Rough Rider easily comparable to the Case. Heck, given their QC, I'll honestly probably take the Rough Rider over the Case at the same price.

I guess my reaction to this is, so? I think you've either posted this in the wrong place or you're going to have a very difficult time explaining why this adversely affects me as a knife enthusiast in any way.

Right now I have very few Chinese knives in my collection, as they don't make much that I'm interested in. But if legitimate Chinese companies make knives I'm interested in I'll happily buy them, the same way I buy American knives, Japanese knives, Taiwanese knives, German knives, Swiss knives, Italian knives, French knives and Canadian knives.
 
Anderdale said:
I've always heard China is way worse than us as far as pollution and such is concerned. Coworker went there over the 4th of July break and said the smog was ridiculous.
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That is false.

Even with the significant higher population, china pollutes less than the US.
The US infact is undisputed king of pollution and with Trump at the wheel that's not looking to get better
 
They could make knives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; if they were excellent quality and affordable, I would buy them.
 
I wonder how the powers that be in China will respond when the cloners and counterfeiters start compromising the reputations and profitability of their very own successful companies products. :D
 
Many things have already been said. The main reason why Chinese manufacturers become more and more dominant on the market is that the production cost is significantly lower than in other countries, such as the US.

Let's take Kizer for example: they import their high qualit parts from Japan and the US. Now those parts have to be put together by machines which are controlled by workers. The income of those workers must be really low in China compared to other knife manufacturing countries. Because of that, you could get certain knives that almost feel like custom made, 50% cheaper.

But if you want to support the economy of your country, you should probably not buy Chinese knives. I especially talk about manufacturers that clone, like Ganzo.
 
Just wait till they start selling us cars......bwah,ha,ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, that's really something, what they're doing to the knife business.
 
It all boils down to what is most important to the purchaser in their decision making process.

In no particular order: quality, style, features, materials, engineering, design, customer service, loyalty, originality, country of origin, and I'm sure other facets I've left out. Bottom line, it's ultimately what makes you comfortable.

Personally, I seek out "Made in USA" not exclusively but as a baseline. It truly is a world economy but if I have a viable choice, I prefer to support my fellow countrymen.
 
I still think its funny some of the Kizers come with that little clear oval "made in china" sticker you find on the digital watch you fish out a cereal box. The exact same sticker from my childhood that was on so many cheap toys.
 
Hickory n steel said:
This only really applies to the " latest and greatest " modern folders with flippers...ect.
Traditionals and fixed blades will always be the best values in cutlery.

Ask yourself this question
if you only had 25$ to spend on a brand new EDC knife and nothing more would you buy a " decent " modern Chinese flipper, or a 100% American made case sodbuster ?
Do you care so much about modern features that you'll give in and go Chinese, or sacrifice features and buy the American made knife.
American made knives with features you want may not always be affordable , but at that point you can still get an American made knife if you sacrifice features and fancy materials.

This is just an extreme example, but it will tell you how strongly you feel about buying American when it comes to getting a brand new knife off the shelf.
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I'd get an Opinel and a Squirt.
 
User17 said:
Many things have already been said. The main reason why Chinese manufacturers become more and more dominant on the market is that the production cost is significantly lower than in other countries, such as the US.

Let's take Kizer for example: they import their high qualit parts from Japan and the US. Now those parts have to be put together by machines which are controlled by workers. The income of those workers must be really low in China compared to other knife manufacturing countries. Because of that, you could get certain knives that almost feel like custom made, 50% cheaper.

But if you want to support the economy of your country, you should probably not buy Chinese knives. I especially talk about manufacturers that clone, like Ganzo.
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Don't forget that their R&D costs are close to none when they steal product designs. They are going to find out that competition is much tougher when others start doing the same to the very, very few original designs they have.
 
kniferbro said:
America taught Japan and China how to make good knives eh? :rolleyes:
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I think he meant make high quality modern production knives. Still even then they more learned how than we taught I would say. (Or more accurately learned they could make money doing it.)
 
thread says "china", wall of text lumps china, taiwan, japan into one classification.

this is the equivalent of generalizing american production into all of Mexico, USA, and Canada. let's try not to embarrass ourselves... we have international members here too
 
There are many reasons why this is so, but there is no reason to worry...unless you are scared of competition.

I am not familiar with top level innovation from there though. Until they create the Apple of knives, I wouldn't look twice.
 
4mer_FMF said:
And I'll likely own a WE 704 before year's end (my first).





I think there is truth to both these posts. If there is institutional (corporate) and political (non burdensome) will to do so, US manufacturers will do just fine in competition.

For example, ZT (I know their parent is Japanese...but they ARE US manufacturing and I assume they turn a profit). Like 'em or hate 'em, I'm personally convinced that the CNC work and internal milling on the 0055 and 0920 were in part a competitive response to recent Chinese offerings. Internal milling and weight loss from one of my favorite US knifemakers? If that's what competition is doing, I am a fan.
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I 100% agree. US manufactures need to step up their game. ZT has been doing this and keeping their prices down, heck even less than Chinese companies lately. Other companies need to step up their game as the manufactures like WE, Reate, Real Steel, Kizer etc are producing fantastic knives that are honestly better quality than Benchmade, Spyderco(US made), Buck, etc.
 
josh yu said:
thread says "china", wall of text lumps china, taiwan, japan into one classification.

this is the equivalent of generalizing american production into all of Mexico, USA, and Canada. let's try not to embarrass ourselves... we have international members here too
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More like generalizing all of Latin America as Mexico. I had a buddy who used to joke "South America? More like South Mexico!" :D
 
Most of what I wanted to say has already been said, but I'm still giving my .02:

China, Taiwan and Japan are totally different countries. They are different, and the differences DO matter, especially in the case of China. There really aren't as many Japanese-made knives in the U.S. market as there used to be, which is unfortunate. Taiwan-made knives today are NOT the Taiwan-made knives from the '80s.

I get the feeling that OP would have no problem if the same thing were happening, but with knives manufactured in a European country or countries.

Keep in mind that Bladeforums (and the U.S.) has members of countless nationalities and ancestries, and lumping all East Asians together as a monolithic "them" (as opposed to "us") shows a deep lack of awareness, like lumping Germany, Italy and Iceland together as "the same thing" would be.

If you only like American-made knives, then buy only American-made knives. But keep in mind that the world does not operate in a vacuum. It's very likely that the titanium in your American-made frame lock came from Russia.

Jim
 
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