My wife and I just returned from China (United Vacations/Majestic tour) and on both the TerraCotta Warrior and Great Wall parts we "had" to visit a silk factory, fake warrior factory and a jade factory. Oh, and lunches on two days were at tourist traps where you had to walk through all sorts of stuff to your table. I never saw it as that big a deal and realized right off that the kickbacks to the tour operators were subsidizing some of the cost of the trip.

We were never forced to buy anything, nor was there even much pressure. A bit of deception perhaps (claiming that these were "safe" "government controlled" places to buy things where you wouldn't get ripped off). I did buy an over-priced set of Terra Cotta warriors (260 yuan, seen elsewhere for about half that) and a chess set (800 yuan), plus a jade bracelet for my daughter (480 yuan). Were the places informative? Not really. But not a big deal.

On the other hand, our visit to the "government" Tea House outside the Temple of Heaven was very worthwhile. Yes, they wanted to sell us tea, but our hostess gave a great presentation, we got to sample some great tea, and the 250 yuan we spent on likely-overpriced tea was well worth the price of admission.

To be completely honest, many visitors are going to feel far more comfortable paying inflated prices to these "factories" than they would bargaining on the streets. We did a fair amount of that, and it was both fun and tiring... tiring because when you tell someone "no" and walk away, they think you're still bargaining. What's the hand signal for telling someone that you're actually not interested?

In our case we didn't do any "random" tours, but if someone was in Shanghai or Beijing without a scheduled itinerary, how do they know a reputable operator from a bad one? Serious question since I'm likely to head back to China on my own in the future, and there might be some things that would be more convenient as part of a day tour trip than on my own. Thanks!