This blanket statement that items originating from China are likely to be fakes falls into the category of Audiokarma "urban legend" to outright BS. I have in my hand a packing slip from Digikey with 10 line items of semiconductors. Nine of the ten originated from China and the other from Indonesia. Actually I don't remember anything I have purchased from DigiKey/Mouser in the last ten years that stated the country of origin was the USA, but plenty from Pakistan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, India, etc. I also know that IBM has China building their mid line servers for many years. I know there are fake/clones out there and one does have to be careful. I do tend to shy away from buying components on eBay but have been successful in getting good components that were not available elsewhere. I will not buy anything from Rumania though. Not that I got a bad component but I paid my money but did not get the component. I finally got my money back from eBay.
Anyone can get taken in on the internet marketplace. Several years ago Dell had an epidemic of mother board capacitors that were emitting magic smoke from counterfeit ones they got from somewhere. They would never say but if you called and said to the warranty folks your mother board (on a certain model) had gone belly up they would send a field service representative out to replace it next business day no questions asked. The service person would not give any info and took back the old motherboard. They would not let you keep it.
My rule of thumb when buying from Hong Kong/China is if the seller has sold thousands of items on eBay and is in good standing they are as safe a bet and buying from Digikey or Mouser. Some items are obviously clones but not always a fake. I bought a clone of a Hakko desoldering station because it was cheaper and it was. You do get what you pay for. Just my two cents.