The funny part, of course, is that the idea was already largely obsolete by the time I was old enough to mouth the words. Oh, sure, in the Seventies the labor and manufacturing costs were still lower than here in the U.S. (although rising fast), but the quality of manufactured goods from the island nation was by then as good as anyplace else in the world and better than most.
The main source for inexpensively assembled electronics and optics has wandered around Southeast Asia for a while, as costs in Japan rose. I've owned optics from the Philippines and Taiwan, for instance. Vaunted camera maker Nikon only made their most expensive DSLRs in the Home Islands before relocating all camera production to their Thailand plant.
Pretty much for the last couple decades, China has been the source for this stuff. The country has a sophisticated manufacturing base and low manufacturing costs, and it's not like good stuff isn't produced there (you don't often hear people accusing iPhones of being shoddily built) but they will make your electronics or optics to whatever price point you want, and QC & materials prices are easy places to slash overhead.
With China apparently having hit peak population growth, though, that standing of being "least expensive source for sophisticated goods" isn't guaranteed to be a forever thing, and I wonder who's next?
Will we be making fun of inexpensive Indian goods, or are they tracking the same arc as China too closely to be able to supplant them for a decade or two? Or maybe some African country will get its governmental ducks in a row long enough to be seen as a good source of cheap manufacturing and we'll see "Made in Nigeria" pocket knives and toaster ovens?
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