But why is there a need to do so many copies? The lack of innovation and R&D capability. The US are huge in defence spending and industrial capability and still there are smaller countries like Israel, Sweden or Germany that show similar or even more innovations with far less spending. So being able to produce something similar, doesn't automatically mean you could have developed something similar on your own. Take J11 as an example, a good copy of the Su 27, but that doesn't gave China the capability to further develop it similar to Su34 or 35s did it? Having build J11 versions later and J10, didn't gave China the capability to develop own NG fighter designs either. The most innovative feature might be the SR missile bay, which clearly shows that they have developed it with certain aims behind it and not only copied from what they saw somewhere else. But exactly this kind of own innovation and R&D is still at low level compared to the defence spending at least, while the ammount of copies is very high.
This isn't an attack, but look at your personal experience, Tejas, Kavari engine, that tank, trainer jets, even ships and submarines to go with the Attack helicopter.
As of this moment only the ship, Kolkata is out, I won't judge how good it is here, but even with Western tech it took 10 years, and I have to say building a ship is the easiest of the bunch.
Can China make those weapons at this time? Maybe, but the difference is way too big, if we want to catch up playing "fair" it would literally take 100 years, cause the Americans are not standing still, in fact they are moving at a blistering pace.
Look at it this way, you got Kolkata, we got 52D, and the Americans have Zumwalt, even out 055 isn't a match for that. You got the Vikrant carrier, we got 001A, and the Americans have Ford class, you got nothing, we got nothing, and the Americans have Osprey.
Lastly while you say copy,and they are, but the blue prints wasn't exactly handed to us, and on the off chance that we do have it, we still need to study it.
Now that has created a generation of engineers with a wealth of experience working on a host of projects, this can be passed onto the next generation.
Why is this important? The first generation of engineers had helicopter models when they started, today's new engineers have dozens of helicopters, various models, and the senior engineers to lead them through the process.
J-11 and J-10? Led to J-20 and J-31, I'm not sure it's 100% our own design, but it's far closer to 100% than any of the previous generation.
Oh and Sweden and Germany? Aside from the fact they have American tech, they lack tons of expertise across a lot of fields, what exactly can the Swedes do, other than that fighter and a couple of guns. Nothing. They don't have our ability for 5th gen fighter, hypersonic missiles, tanks, heavy transports, engines, and any of the other 1000 fields that the military needs to function properly.
