[VOA]

“But you could see incremental improvement in everything the Japanese
did with autos.”

Yes.
The post-WWII Japanese had a number of advantages:
1. understanding of how to build/run a real “hard metal” industry
2. plenty of hungry people that were desperate to succeed
3. the luck of latching onto a quality-control guru...from the USA

To some degree China doesn’t have those factors.
And while they are (relatively) getting rich and fat from selling
junk to the USA...that sort of knocks the wind out of any attempt to
try to build real quality/safety into their autos.

(just my inexpert opinion)

[DCPatriot]

I could recall my late father...a UAW member...always ragging on toys or products with "Made in Japan" on them.

If he were alive today to see what the Japanese did to his domestic auto industry's standing in the market, he'd flip out.