>The whole "safety" argument is something I think is overrated.

It is not overrated, mostly it is bullshit.
Read my remark about kinetic energy.
It is made to sell you new car.
And emission standards to force for to buy new car (if you did not lake safety lecture :-) ).
Same with service parts costs (this is huge business, much more profitable then cars themselfs).
If they wanted to build really safe cars tey'll make them as proper cars - with steel tubes skeleton, proper seats and proper belts. Look at any rally car. This things are safe.
Normal cars... they are less dangerous :-)

>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118651314364590719.html

This is not facts.
It is made by AutoReview journal (advertisement only yellow press).
Sold 100% to major manufacturers.
Locally they fight Chinese cars with all they can.
I do not want to say that China make best cars (I don't care about it, really).
But all this shit is ignoring simple fact that kinetic energy is proportional to mv^2.
So, if instead of 60km/h you run at 80km/h, your fancy Mercedes could look much worse then cheapest car.

>To my knowledge, old Toyotas are still heavily exported to post Soviet countries

It's false. Not anymore :-)
Most manufacturers make cars locally now :-)

>stealing is still stealing

It is not stealing.
People are just lazy to read definition of "stealing".
You can't steal something that resides with its owner.
Its just some perverted logic.
You can call it "illegal duplication". But this sounds not so nice as stealing, isn't it?
People can start to suspect that something is fucked up here.

>I used to work for various Japanese companies which were using Chinese parts for its production. I also visited those Chinese factories. The quality was horrible, but it was cheap.

Any primers of such companies? What kind of parts?
You make big generalizations, and that's bad.
Good factories with very good conditions for workers exists.
Salary is constantly increasing among all manufacturers.
Most workers now live in normal apartments inside large houses.
If you want to find cheap and bad you could do it in any country.
Same for reverse.

>As well as Chinese don't believe in safety rules in general. No one believes nowadays Chinese cars. Even Chinese don't.

This is fucking propaganda.
Suppy us facts.
Like statistics of injures and deaths per 1000 cars for each manufacturer.
So we could check if Chinese cars are in fact coffins on wheels.
I want just to make slight warning, in our country such statistic proves that you are badly wrong.

> Our local automobile company is making big business selling cars in China, they are very popular among middle class.

Middle class is all the same across many countries. Same motherfuckers.
I like how Ken told about this.
If you own something fancy and costly it do not make you rich, quite the contrary, it tells that you dumped fucking load of money to other people.
Same in USSR in late 80s.
This motherfuckrs could sell their mom to get this fancy old Toyota. Any logical reason?
It's fucking dandy.
Well, it continued to be dandy for a while, but after this someone closed their factory or other place they worked and they were fucked.
It happens that this had been same people who told motherfuckers via TV and press that old Toyotas are dandy.
How strange is that?

>Well it's illegal to start with. It's like copying fashion brands, software, electronics etc.

And that so bad about all this?
Generally, only one thing. Western countries developer soficticated copyrigh and patent laws to survive.
Both laws must be dismanted for real progress and replaced by something totally different (and they will be dismanted by other countries during upcoming crysis period).
As for illegal - it becomes illegal if original owner have international patent (and you can't patent "look" in many countries, you also can't patent algorithms in many countries :-) ) and he uses this patent to prevent making copies that are supplied to his market. Building something according to patent is not illegal, patent gives you right to stop someone and you must prove violation also (this is hard part), it is not automatic.

>But Chinese will not go the same way. The situation in China is very different

Having contact with guys who constantly inspect Chinese factories and make orders I can say that it is complete bullshit. Utterly bullshit.

>It's not about shitty design, it's about copied design.

And that is wrong with it?
This is a way to learn fast. You copy, then improve, then doing something original.
As simple as that.

>And most Chinese cars are still not able to pass safety controls of EU.

As far as I understand the only reason is that EU is afraid that their car manufacturers will be doomed.
I hope that you do not think that "independent car safety tests" ever existed.

>In general, the "Chinese quality" still has a stamp of shitty products.

Same had been true for Japan.
All this stamps had been made by rich people for dumb motherfuckers.
If you are not dumb, you don't give a fuck about them.

All this "look" is very subjective thing.
I don't give a shit about car looks.
I don't want to be like motherfuckers who get out of pricey sports car with awful looking and dumb girl :-)
I prefer reverse situation.

Chinese already make very good cars, in fact they made much more cars then USA companies :-)
As for routers and modems. They win competition hands down.
Same will happen with smartphones.

chinese reputable ebay sellers, chinese reputable e-commerce sites, chinese reputable brands... what's next?