If you’ve paid 79.99 for a three person tent, you’ll get what you paid for, junk.
I'm particularly interested in tents. I searched for years for a tall 3-person tent with an awning (for shade) that could comfortably accommodate one person on a 15" high cot. This design does not exist in the U.S. In my search, I tried a couple of cheap Chinese tents from Amazon. The Clostnature 3-person Polaris, for example, is $85. I found that the whole tent was very well made and consisted of superior materials. The fly and floor have a 5000 mm PU coating, which is much more than US tents costing several hundred dollars---many of those have a 1200 to 3000 mm coating. All seams are well sealed. All neatly double stitched. It has an awning---very rare on US tents. It has all the expected features of a quality tent---bathtub floor, fly vents, full-coverage fly, large doors, aluminum poles. The company was very responsive in answering several questions I had. I returned this tent only because the sides slanted in too much for my purpose (the cot ends hit the sides). They processed my return immediately, so both the product and the service were good to excellent.
I found other good-quality Chinese tents at Amazon that had features lacking on US tents. I've had good experiences with many other Chinese gear items. I discarded a long string of expensive US-brand inflatable seat cushions before finding a durable one made in China by Deerfamy.
Helinox cots and chairs are designed and made in South Korea. No US company could design a very lightweight, well-engineered cot or chair until Helinox arrived. But they're tremendously expensive, so I don't blame Chinese companies for successfully imitating them. Successful companies have to combine innovation with reasonable consumer prices and good services. I bet most people in this forum could state some product they wish existed on the market, like my tall 3P tent, which I still haven't found.
That indicates that the US is not always the best innovator. Rather, US gear companies want to dictate what they think we want and need, and they get stuck in some design that lasts for years. For example, there was a whole decade when it was very difficult to buy a US-made hatchback car because manufacturers decided we didn't need a hatchback. Right now Japan is making some great mini RV campers, not available in the US.
So (a) yes, Asian products are innovative, including Chinese, and (b) China is turning out some innovative high-quality products. You have to know where to look for them.
