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i respect china on its manufactuing success ... SEZ .. export ... some good university ..its a fact
but
Defence ... that too indegenus .. Sorry .. may be some
but most most of your hardware is reverse engineer or blatant abuse of IPR...
this is also fact
I actually like China's approach toward indigenous weapons platform development. It's very practical and goes a step beyond reverse engineering.
I'm glad the Chinese used the air frame designs of Su-27s for their J-11B, Su-33 for J-15 and Su-30 for J-16s. What's the point of wasting resources (both time and money) to create a completely new 4th generation aircraft at this point in time? 5th generation aircrafts are right around the corner, so why spend more $$ and more time to create yet another 4th generation aircraft when those resources can be allocated toward the 5th generation projects such as J-20 and J-31?
For J-11, J-15 and J-16 China had the following 2 options:
Option 1: Design a completely new 4th generation aircraft.
Pro: So that internet fan boys can have something to brag about
Con: Cost several billion $$ more
Con: Take 4-5 years longer. what can you do to fulfill the current requirements? Import more aircrafts which again cost more $$. So the same amount of $$ allocated will equal far fewer aircrafts.
Con: By the time the new design is finished, J-20 or J-31 is probably approaching production.... so what's the point of the new design?
Option 2: Base the air frame design on the current flankers and make improvements (using composite in the air frame, better radar, more powerful engine etc)
Pro: Get the planes faster and for a cheaper price
Pro: More investments for the domestic arms industry and more resources available for 5th generation R&D.
Pro: Just look at the end results. J-11B is much better than Su-27, J-15 is much better than the basic Su-33 and J-16 is arguably more advanced than any other Su-30 variants out there (Su-30MKI included.)
Con: None, since due to the arms embargo European & American companies can't sell weapons to China anyways and the Russian companies are so desperate to sell this don't even matter.
Intellectual property rights protection is completely irrelevant when in the realms of national defense. It's the job of any intelligence agency in every country to try to "steal" information and technology.