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Can you make a Chinese scooter reliable? Sure.
All you have to do is get rid of ALL the old wiring and rewire it with a proper wiring harness that has real automotive connectors on them, which won't rust or stop working after (a) you've disconnected them once or twice or (b) because they are in a vibrating environment which they weren't designed for. You might be able to save some time by using the existing wiring harness and just replacing all the connectors, but make sure you check for stupid things like wire junctions INSIDE the cable jacket made by twisting the wires together. If you see a different number of wires going in on one end of the harness than coming out at the other, this is a dead giveaway.
Oh yeah, you also have to tear the engine and most of the drivetrain completely apart, inspect it for assembly problems, and reassemble everything to the correct torque values. The only problem is that there is no English service manual that has the torque values specified, so you're making educated guesses (which, let's be honest, is probably what the workers in the factory were doing when they put it together).
Oh yeah, and while you have that engine out, make sure you replace every hose clamp on every single vacuum and coolant line on the bike. As for the hoses themselves, I'd check the fuel line first. If it is stamped "DOT", then great news! You only have to replace the clamps. Otherwise, replace all the fuel lines on the bike.
Wheel/Tires: Replace both valve cores. Replacements are cheap and readily available at Autozone.
Brakes: I wouldn't replace them immediately, but I would certainly look for quality replacement pads. I talked with someone who had a TaoTao 50 who ran through 3 sets of brake pads and had <2000 miles on the bike. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that he lived at the top of a mountain (or drove down one every day) and kept on replacing them with the same kind of pads. (It also had the electrical problems that are associated with China scoots.)
Belt: If the stock belt isn't a Kevlar belt... replace it. Especially if you weigh more than 150lbs.
If you do these things, and everything in the PDI, you can pretty much be guaranteed to have a reliable bike, as long as you don't hammer the thing.
So, you basically need a set of all the gaskets on the bike, a set of new automotive connectors, and 80-120 hours of someone's time, plus any parts that were missing or damaged from the factory, in order to get something that is probably as reliable as any given Japanese or Taiwanese bike on the road.
2006 Kymco Xciting 250 : 11,800 miles
2009 Kymco Xciting 500: 21,500 miles
That's 30,000+ scooter miles with the only non-maintenance repair being the replacement of a muffler pipe and gaskets, thanks to driving on Massachuesett's fine pothole, I mean, highway system at night.
When I owned a 2014 Jonway YY250T, I felt like I was spending more time waiting for parts than I was driving it. In 7 months (March -> September) I only managed to put ~3200 miles on the bike; I typically put 10,000+ miles each year on them, from March -> early November.
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