I have a chinese brand Strat-copy that's modded to hell (now only the wood is stock, lol). It was already a nice instrument, though, and I have never seen a nicer hard ash body than that. The guitar's absolutely killer in its present form. I see lots of poor quality copies, though, you have to spend some time looking for 'gems'.
Chinese brands are slowly realizing that they have something western countries don't have anymore: lots of intact, old forests with lots of high quality wood that almost doesn't cost them anything.