In the 60's I worked in the toolroom of a local engineering firm. We bought a new Elliot horizontal mill - I presume in that era it was not of Chinese manufacture, but it was a pile of junk nonetheless. The knee upfeed was way too fast and likely to ram the workpiece into the cutter before the operator could stop it, and the three levers under the knee confusing as to which axis they controlled. Dodging inch x a tenth of an inch swarf coming off the machine was a trifle hazardous too. But the final straw was when our fitter Les set the machine on a cut whilst we took our coffee break. Ten minutes later we came back to find the bed on the floor with the remains of the leadscrew thrashing wildly about. Les had to dive in to switch it off. Had he forgotten to set the bed stop? No - the machine had sheared the stop off and carried on to destruction. So it's not only Chinese stuff that's suspect .....
