I spent a few hours on this and so far only have a few traces of information.
Stihl does have a plant in China, that is well known.
However, the first overseas plant for Stihl was in Brazil, opened in 1973. They maintained Germain supervisors to ensure the same quality was ensured/guaranteed.
Chain production was moved to Switzerland in 1974, and still is there to this day. In fact some of the best chains in the world come from the Switzerland plant owned and run by Stihl.
Production in the U.S. began in 1974. However, parts for the saws are not U.S. made, or at least all of them. If I understand correctly many of the parts have come from other plants, many from Brazil.
Production in the Qingdao, China plant began in 2006. However, as in Brazil, German management run the plant and ensure that German quality is maintained.
Now, missing from above, in 1992 Stihl purchased 100% of Viking GmbH, an Austrian maker of lawn and garden power equipment. Apparently they are making several Viking products in the China plant as well.
While historically China has made inferior products, it was in part because the U.S. companies who set up the plants did not care, and only wanted the profit margin. China, as well as any other country for that matter, can be trained to perform a quality job and can in fact produce it. The biggest factor here really is the owner of the plant, their standards and how firm they are in sticking to what they believe or in their actual motives and desires.
I have many Stihl's, made in Germany and the U.S. Only one of them has given me any trouble at all.. zero issues on the rest. The one that has given me the trouble is the little 170, it has had 3 carburetors in 4 months of life. To this day, has not yet had 1 full hour of use on it.. I am somewhat less than impressed with the track record of this little saw.. if its big brothers were not behaving as well as they are I would frankly be very ticked at Stihl. The local dealer has however treated me very well.
While the other thread has had some serious China bashing.. realistically it is the owner of the company for the most part that is responsible for the quality. We can only really blame or our North American companies, and our own North American greed for the quality at the stores. And we can only blame the consumers for buying the crap.. The Japanese companies used to build somewhat inferior products up until the mid to late 1970's, some beyond that. They did however learn how to make a quality product (learned it quite ironically from a couple of Americans). They mastered the art.. and now are considered among the world leaders in quality.
Frankly, North America did not build quality either.. but were more interested in profit again. Look at our auto industry. Used to be full of rust.. lots of maintenance.. etc.. the cars produced today are far superior to those of 30 years ago, but ONLY because of foreign competition. Only after loosing large chunks of the market did the companies finally change.
We bash the foreign companies, but frankly it is our own fault!!
Having said that I still prefer to buy North American goods!
Back to the thread. Stihl historically has maintained the highest level of quality in their foreign plants, and so far I am not sure there is too much to worry about from a quality perspective. Hopefully that lasts and they are not overcome by greed.
