I love the Chinese chest thumping and mentality of 'we are greater then everyone', 'we have surpassed everyone'.
Israel, German, France, and the UK are not on the same level of industrial power as China, they don't have the money that China has, they don't produce the same number of patents that China does. Yet Israel has world class radars, UAVs, and missiles. France has world class aircraft and electronics. The UK has world class engines and submarines and Germany has world class armor, engines, ect.
Funny Russia's economy, industrial output and scientific output is similar to the above mentioned nations yet the Chinese are spouting that they have surpassed Russia because of those factors.
All these countries are successful because they are innovators, they look to revolutionize and not just copy like China often does. They have experience and experienced individuals. China can have all the money in the world and all the patents in the world but at the end of the day it's defence firms and talented individuals that come into play. How much money an economy has is irrelevant since it doesn't dictate how much of a budget a defence firm will have.
On the contrary, Russia is the second leading exporter of arms with record breaking sales each year. Those companies have plenty of money. If needed they can get more money from the government. On top of that Russia has close ties with French companies that are willing to sell some of their most advanced products to Russia. Not to mention France and Russia just recently teamed up to built an IFV. this means that Russia has partners and can draw from experience obroad.
And sorry many modern Chinese tanks, aircraft, ect are still powered by either licensed copies or unlicensed copies of German, Russian, ukranian, and British engines. Funny considering that many in this thread have degraded the Europeans and Russian as being inferior.