To answer OP's question, i think Dare and Trigon would be two that I would look at in terms of carbon frames.
How did Taiwan gain a reputation of being high quality yet China having a stigma of low quality? I have folks regularly coming to my channel saying they would never buy a Chinese brand but have no issues with Taiwanese brands.
I think time is the #1 factor. ASI brands used Taiwanese manufacturing early, and then there were Giant, Merida, Gigantex, etc. They seem to have over a decade on most of the mainland-based brands. That is a long time gain acceptance and build brands.
I believe Kinesis does many OEM framesets for different brands. They don't sell directly to certain regions such as the US, but they supply many brands that use their framesets.
IP protection is #2.
Kinesis is a fascinating case. I think Kinesis UK is a sub-brand with a good reputation, and their website (
http://www.kinesis.com.tw/en/) lists both own-brand and OEM businesses...but is the Kinesis frame you buy from AliExpress from the same Kinesis that is the Taiwanese company? There are plenty of people here who wouldn't care, but those in the general market do care — after all, brand trust is part of the transaction, and most people place a non-zero value on it.
With that example in mind, you can see how the IP position in China, which essentially leaves copyrights and wordmarks unenforceable, creates problems. Why buy a product if you're not sure it's genuine? The answer is simply because you can get it for a lot less. That sets the price expectation that products are cheap, low quality, prone to breakage, and will have no brand support. It's a steep hill for Chinese brands to climb. For example, why should a customer buy a Quick Pro when they can get an SL8 fake that's not an SL8 fake (but turned out to be an SL8 fake anyway) for 1/3rd the price? How does Quick Pro prove that they are better? Can they even do that if they are lumped in with companies that lie to and gaslight their customers? Two of the top threads on this forum concern fakes, which remain popular despite some serious issues, including forks breaking and small metal parts not functioning properly, requiring replacement with genuine parts.
OEM business is #3.
I also think that many of the current offerings from Taiwanese companies appear less advanced because they are allocating their resources to maintain OEM accounts. It's a choice that Microshift and Kinesis both seem to be making, as they are prioritizing their B2B accounts rather than throwing ideas at the wall and hoping they stick before conducting proper product testing. After all, there are a lot fewer complaints about Microshift Sword than there are about Ltwoo's ERX/ER9. Additionally, if it comes on a Trek, most people assume the product has been thoroughly checked and is of good quality, so that helps on the trust front, even if the components are low-end.
