.... the pricing of Chin Bins and German/Austrian bins would have to be similar. But I agree, that really is another thread.
"Chin bins". Now there's a phrase that deserves to be more widely used.
there are only two roads we as optic enthusiast can follow.... One is the pursuit of optical excellence and the other is the pursuit of lower cost bins...
This is a maxim much spoken (without the optics/bins reference) by retailers. I'm not sure it is always true of retailers, let alone binocular manufacturers. I myself don't want 100% of the excellence at 100% of the price (though I'm happy for those that do to indulge themselves). Nor do I want 10% of the excellence at 10% of the price. Me, I want 95% of the excellence at 25% of the price. From the number of people buying Zen-Ray ED2s etc, it would seem I am not alone.
So, should we support the totalitarian state of China by giving it our hard earned cash when we buy or new binoculars.
Pros:
It´s very very cheap.
Cons:
We support a totalitarian communist state. Perhaps we take away a job here and give it to someone in China. Good or bad?
You are asking a very loaded question. You pre-suppose that buying products from a communist country helps to support the continuation of communism. Okay, that seems intuitive enough. But is it true? Consider Cuba. Do you really imagine Castro would have been able to stay in power all this time without the misguided trade embargo of Cuba's Big Bad Neighbour?
History shows us that when people are impoverished, they generally turn to radical politics. Prime example: 1920s/early 30s Germany. I suggest to you that the best thing you can do to help dismantle communism is to buy from its people. Allow people a little money of their own, and they soon get the taste for it.
I rode my motorcycle through Albania a year ago. Albania is a former communist state whose people had been repressed for 40 years by a dictator, Enver Hoxha. They are still clearly very poor by our standards - I lost count of the number of donkey carts and goat herders - but I have never seen so much determination to move up in life. Every other 17-year-old had saved up for a power-washer and was self-employed cleaning cars. Many thirty-somethings had spent the last ten years working hard abroad and had now come back to Albania and were building or running their own hotel or shop or workshop.
Allow people a taste of the freedom to earn their own money, and they will want more. And will be willing to work hard for it. This is how America got wealthy - through Free Trade and enterprise. Free Trade does not destroy jobs, it creates them. Okay, it sometimes moves them round a bit too, but that's a free economy for you.
Do not make the British and European mistake of thinking the state sometimes knows best. It doesn't. The state never knows best. We should buy Chinese products with the confident knowledge that, not only are we getting a bargain, but we are helping the world's biggest population to move towards the wealth and freedom we ourselves largely take for granted.