>>1630316its extremely possible that the dies and other tooling for shimano parts are either made in china or the designs were stolen/copied by chinese. it's a super commonplace practice. Idk if in this case it has happened but its certainly the case with heaps and heaps of shit. One example in the personal vehicle market is one wheels - you can find legit one wheel brand parts in graymarket stores that have been siphoned off the production line.
>>1630359I dont think they ever will, in the same way Shimano doesnt compete with Campagnolo. What will happen is you will have a thinning of independent mid market brands - as they either have to shoot for branding as high quality, or try to compete in the middle market against ever-cheaper competitor products. In essence this is already occuring, just in a hidden way, with all the fake new brands that are just chinese shit.
Lots of fake "boutique" italian and british brands established in the last 10 or so years that are just chinese and probably all come out of the same factory and owned by the same conglomerate.
>>1630487>Taiwanese-made components are superior. And used shit is always available.i couldnt agree more, its just probably the case that Taiwan won't be independent for much longer...
>Except China is run by the CCP.doesnt change the thesis that japanese used to be cheap shit exported manufacturing when everything was european, and then the european market shrunk into a handful of brands as the japanese started to carve a path of their own - both bikes and cars and lots of other industries saw this. Taiwan falls in the same category. Certain chinese manufacturers are following a similar trajectory these days, its just theyre sitting in a sea full of bottom dollar manufacturers and aren't very visible yet. What I'm saying is there are particular brands and manufacturers who have become the "reliable" source and they find success in that niche.
