Never buy Chinese anything made in china. In a canadian or American factory if the quality is poor they chuck them. The Chinese don't care and I have seen some real junk made in china. If you can go in the store and look them over then fine you might find a good Chinese SKS. Don't buy a rifle made in china through the mail. Just my opinion you might get lucky.
Oh look, this stale rhetoric again.
I have two Chinese SKS rifles that are unrefurbished and unissued. They came to me packed in cosmoline and were
exceptionally tight to disassemble and re-assemble, to the point of it almost being difficult. These things were basically brand new and once I was ready to shoot them, they performed excellently. After thousands of rounds and some pretty intensive torture testing, I can't get the one I shoot the most to jam. The other one is rarely shot and has never jammed either, but that doesn't mean much.
The fit and finish may not be the greatest, but remember that you're paying under 200 bucks for a Communist made combat rifle that rarely stops working and always puts the rounds where it's designed to put them.
I don't want to slag on the Russian ones, as I own three, but they're almost always more well used than a Chinese one which means the groups
may be a bit (not much) worse and there may be some wear on the parts. I have an absolutely stock (all of my SKS's are) '54 Izhevsk that stovepipes the second last round in the mag at least twice per range trip where I shoot at least 200 rounds from it. My Chinese ones, put bluntly, cause less problems than my Russian ones, not that the Russian ones are too bad.
As for the comparison between the Canadian and American factories, please tell me the name of the Canadian and American factories that are producing SKS carbines, I'd like to pick one up.
You seem to have fallen for the internet rumors that all Chinese SKS's are junk because of a few documented stories of some of the
Commercial Chinese SKS rifles being fairly sub-par. What you should realize is that 90% of the Type 56's you'll see for sale here in Canada are Military surplus rifles that have been made to a much higher standard.
Unless you get a late 80's pinned barrel, sheet metal construction Type 56, which are quite hard to find actually, your Chinese SKS will shoot great and outlive you if you take care of it.