Difference in quality in products made in China?

I had bought a Cary Audio Design CD player CDP 303 about 12 years ago, and to my surprise I found at the back panel there was a sticker "assembled in Hong Kong " . Within second year the laser lense assembly failed and I had to replace it . Few more years later the analog output stage failed , I found that DAC section has failed . Instead of repairing , I bought a stand alone Bryston DAC to take digital output from my CDP . Four months back it had broken a cd drawer assembly gear . I bought a replacement Gera assembly with belt from eBay and replaced it . So it works fine now .
Against his : I also have a Sony CD player CDP 910 ( 10 cd magazine type ) , MADE IN JAPAN , bought in 1993 . I use it now on my second system . This CD player has never ever given me any problem, and works flawless even today. Not even rubber belt replacement !
Price I paid for Sony CD player was about $500 in 1993, while list price for Cary CDP 303 was $3000 in 2002.

The speaker build houses here were giving us a 30% failure rate, we switched to China and now have a zero% failure rate, at 1/3 the build cost.

( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/09/us/us-panel-calls-huawei-and-zte-national-security-threat.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 )closely related: ( http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/22/the_top_10_chinese_cyber_attacks_that_we_know_of ) (vhttp://timelines.latimes.com/la-fg-china-cyber-disclosures-timeline/ )

Different politics, economies and world views. Spying has been going on for so long now. It's just gotten so sophisticated that "why bother?" and "what, me worry?" are the bars for conscience.

Just now on the news I saw a 10 yr old girl who goes by the moniker CyFi who got bored with a video game and hacked the clock program to speed things up. I think I was still playing with Lincoln Logs at that age.

We live in different times and tech is outpacing us. I'm so glad retirement is on my horizon: I couldn't compete on that level but you know, they could ask for my opinion now and then.

All the best,
Nonoise

Twenty years ago my brother-in-law who at the time was a government spook would laugh himself silly about his cell phone being taped within minutes after de-boarding a plane in China.