• Jan 21, 2026

Why 'Made in China' still wins in Australia

Why "Made in China" Still Wins in Australia: Trust and Consumer Behaviours in Australia

Only 22% of Australians say they trust companies headquartered in China, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer.

Yet walk through any Australian home and the contradiction is obvious. Smartphones, laptops, televisions, kitchen appliances, power tools, clothing, furniture, toys, and even medical equipment are overwhelmingly made in China.

The modern Australian household is deeply embedded in Chinese manufacturing, despite widespread geopolitical scepticism and institutional distrust.

At first glance, this appears paradoxical. If trust is low, why is consumption so high?

The answer is that trust, as measured in surveys, is not the primary driver of everyday purchasing behaviour. Consumer decisions in mass-market categories are governed by a different set of psychological and economic mechanisms than political attitudes or institutional confidence.

The Two Minds Model: Political Citizen vs Practical Consumer

Human beings do not think with a single, unified decision system.

Behavioural psychology distinguishes between two broad modes of cognition:

One is reflective, value-driven, and socially oriented. This is the mind that answers surveys, forms political opinions, and reacts to news about geopolitics, human rights, or data security.

The other is practical, automatic, and optimisation-driven. This is the mind that navigates supermarkets, compares prices, and chooses between brands under time and budget constraints.

When Australians are asked whether they trust companies headquartered in China, they respond using the first system.

Their answers are shaped by media narratives about state surveillance, corporate governance, trade disputes, cybersecurity, and strategic rivalry. The question is abstract and institutional. It asks them to evaluate a country as a geopolitical and economic actor, not a toaster, or a mobile phone charger.

When the same individuals enter a store or browse an online catalogue, the second system takes over.

The question is no longer "Do I trust Chinese corporations?" but "Does this product work, is it affordable, and is it available right now?"

The decision is concrete, immediate, and low in perceived personal risk. The cognitive frame shifts from citizenship to consumption.

This separation explains why distrust expressed at the civic level does not translate into boycott behaviour at the retail level. Political attitudes are slow, symbolic, and identity-linked.

Purchasing decisions in everyday categories are fast, habitual, and utility-focused.

The two operate in different mental compartments and rarely interact.

Most consumer goods fall into what psychologists call "low-involvement" categories. The perceived consequences of a poor choice are limited. A malfunctioning kettle is an inconvenience, not a life-altering event.

In such contexts, people rely on heuristics: price, brand familiarity, retailer reputation, and basic functionality. Country-of-headquarters trust is not part of the mental shortcut.

Only in "high-involvement" domains—financial services, healthcare, data platforms, telecommunications infrastructure—does institutional trust meaningfully enter the decision calculus.

A bank, a hospital, or a cloud provider requires long-term reliance and carries systemic risk. A $39 blender does not.

Thus, Australians can simultaneously distrust Chinese corporate governance in the abstract while confidently buying Chinese-manufactured goods in practice. The psychological categories are distinct: institutional legitimacy on one side, product utility on the other.

Price Elasticity: When Cost Overpowers Ethics

If psychology explains why trust does not dominate, economics explains what does.

The categories in which Chinese manufacturing is most prevalent—electronics, appliances, apparel, tools, furniture, household goods—are among the most price-elastic in the consumer economy. Small changes in price produce large changes in demand.

China's role as the world's manufacturing hub is not accidental. It is the result of decades of investment in industrial clustering, component ecosystems, logistics infrastructure, and scale efficiencies that no other country has replicated at comparable cost.

Entire supply chains for semiconductors, displays, batteries, motors, textiles, plastics, and packaging are geographically concentrated. This concentration drives unit costs down to levels that alternative production bases struggle to match.

For Australian consumers, this translates into a stark trade-off.

A product manufactured outside China often:

• Costs significantly more
• Available in fewer models
• Has longer lead times

In some categories, non-Chinese options are rare or effectively nonexistent. In others, the price premium can range from 30% to several hundred percent.

Under conditions of rising interest rates, housing stress, and persistent cost-of-living pressure, price sensitivity intensifies. Households optimise for affordability and immediate value.

Ethical or geopolitical preferences become secondary, not because they are unimportant, but because they are constrained by budget realities.

Economists describe this as the dominance of "revealed preferences" over "stated preferences". People may express a desire to support domestic or non-Chinese manufacturing, but their actual spending reveals that affordability and availability are the binding constraints. Trust becomes, in effect, a luxury variable. It influences choice only when price differences are small and alternatives are plentiful. In highly commoditised, cost-driven markets, it is overwhelmed by economic necessity.

This is not unique to Australia, nor to China. The same pattern appears in environmental purchasing. Many consumers express concern about sustainability, yet choose cheaper, less sustainable products when faced with significant price gaps.

The Survey vs Checkout Disconnect

The Edelman Trust Barometer measures attitudes, not transactions.

It captures how people feel about institutions, governments, corporations, and countries in a broad societal sense. These responses are shaped by media exposure, political discourse, and social identity.

They are also influenced by social desirability: respondents know what kinds of concerns are considered legitimate or responsible to express.

Shopping behaviour, by contrast, is situational and constraint-driven.

At the checkout, individuals face immediate trade-offs:

• Price
• Time
• Availability
• Perceived Quality

The cognitive load is practical, not ideological. The decision is not framed as a referendum on global governance but as a choice between two concrete options on a shelf or screen.

This creates a systematic gap between attitudinal data and behavioural outcomes. Survey questions invite symbolic evaluation. Market choices require functional optimisation. The former is reflective and slow; the latter is automatic and fast.

The framing effect is critical.

Asking: "Do you trust companies headquartered in China?" activates geopolitical narratives and institutional concerns.

Asking, "Which of these two microwaves would you like to buy?" activates cost-benefit calculation. The country of corporate registration is rarely salient in the second context, especially when mediated by familiar brands and trusted retailers.

Behavioral economics consistently shows that context determines which values are activated. In abstract discussion, people prioritise principles. In concrete choice environments, they prioritise trade-offs. The same individual can sincerely hold both positions without experiencing cognitive dissonance, because the decisions occur in different mental frames.

The Invisibility of Global Supply Chains

Even for consumers who wish to avoid Chinese involvement, the structure of global supply chains makes this extraordinarily difficult.

Components may be produced in China, assembled elsewhere, packaged in China, or transported through Chinese logistics networks. A product labelled "Made in Vietnam" or "Assembled in Malaysia" may still contain Chinese-made displays, batteries, circuit boards, or fabrics.

The complexity and opacity of these chains mean that origin is rarely transparent or actionable. Avoidance requires time, specialised knowledge, and a willingness to pay substantial premiums. For most households, this is impractical. As a result, intent rarely translates into consistent behaviour.

Where Trust Actually Matters

None of this implies that trust is irrelevant.

It matters profoundly in domains involving long-term dependency, data sovereignty, critical infrastructure, and national security. It shapes government procurement, foreign investment screening, telecommunications policy, and strategic supply chain diversification. It influences regulation and diplomatic alignment.

What it does not strongly shape is the everyday retail economy of consumer goods, where decisions are decentralised, low-risk, and price-sensitive.

The same population that expresses concern about China's political system can rationally support restrictions on strategic technology while still purchasing a Chinese-made vacuum cleaner without contradiction.

Structure Over Sentiment

Australians do not buy Chinese-made products because they trust Chinese companies.

They buy them because the global consumer economy is structurally organised around Chinese manufacturing, and because their everyday decision-making is governed by affordability, availability, and functional value rather than by institutional geopolitics.

The Two Minds model explains the psychological separation between civic attitudes and market behaviour. Price elasticity explains why cost overwhelms ethical or political preferences in mass-market categories. The survey-versus-checkout disconnect explains why stated trust levels fail to predict purchasing patterns.

Low trust and high consumption are not contradictory once the difference between abstract belief and concrete choice is understood. At the ballot box and in opinion polls, Australians think as citizens of a strategic middle power. At the checkout, they think of households managing budgets in a globalised supply system.

In that system, "Made in China" continues to win not because of trust, but because of structure.