Chinese lathes can be very good, it's just that the importers aren't bringing them over. Cheaper the lathe, more the profit. A lot of manufacturers make same basic lathe but the quality levels can vary widely. Almost 10 years ago, my son and I went together and bought a heavily discounted clearout 250mmx550mm (commonly but incorrectly called 10x22 ) at a local tool store, KMS, that they had had imported. This design is an improved copy of the Maximat8 . It has steel gears instead of plastic. It was pretty bare so I tracked down the maker and another importer, Lathemaster, to finish it out. That's when I found out most, like Grizzly were made by SEIG. These were merely assembled and show it. However XIMA lathes are carefully fitted . And the dials of the guys testing them showed that. In order for the XIMA to be competitive, they stripped it when they sold to KMS. Even with the heavy discount, when finished flushing it out, we ended up paying more than BusyBee/Grizzly. But we did it in steps.
I would like to say what a great little lathe it has been, but when my son moved out I told him I'll buy him out. He said "No dad, I'll buy you out." Now I have '92 Taiwanese DF1224g . The foot print isn't that much bigger. It will be a better lathe when I finish it.