Not entirely true. All thru the 1950's PRC was the beneficiary of huge largesse in technological & financial terms courtesy the USSR up until the early to mid 60's thanks to the ideological & personality clashes between Khrushchev & Mao.
Where do you think the designs for the atomic bombs or the hydrogen bombs or the N reactors or the N submarines or even the J-7 & it's various variants ( MiG - 15 / MiG - 17 / MiG - 19 / MiG - 21 ) came from ?
Cut to the early 80's & right up to the Tiananmen Square incident the US & Europe had deep defence ties with PRC. The commercial & economic ties including the sharing of technology in the commercial arena continues. That's what explains the huge domestic industry in PRC doesn't it be in cellular phones or consumer electronics or various other commodities . In the event dual use technology wasn't sanctioned till the late 90's & beyond.
Right up until the coming of power of Trump , the US & EU continued to host a vast community of Chinese students there for further studies. A number of studies in the recent past have highlighted the deep penetration of western academia by the Chinese state courtesy their huge student community.
It's an open secret that J-10 was based totally on the Israeli Lavi which PRC paid top dollar to Israel to acquire. In fact it took the threat of sanctions by the US against Israel in the late 90's & early 2000's before Israel suspended it's sale of PHALCON AEW systems to PRC.
Every advanced society in the world has depended on external stimuli or ingression to a certain degree to impart a momentum to their own development. How much does the US Atomic Bomb project owes itself to the Jewish scientific community which fled Europe & more specifically Germany to escape the Holocaust ? Ditto for NASA & the missile projects of the US & USSR post WW-2.
How much does the USSR aeronautical ecosystem owe itself to US & UK contributions during WW-2 & later the seminal decision by PM Clement Atlee to permit the sharing of the Jet engine technology by RR with USSR ? Arguably the USSR would be bereft of the Jet engine for a number of years but for that fateful decision.
Let's not over emphasize the huge advances PRC has made in various fields or even defence technology thru indigenous efforts which without a doubt though commendable is also natural for a nation of it's size & ambitions . Hence let's also cease making a virtue out of a necessity. China did what it had to i.e - China has innovated technology as much as it has copied & plagiarized.
The real trick is in mastering knowledge which was & still is a closely guarded secret like advanced jet engines , semi conductors , etc .
Finally , much is made of the 100 yrs of slavery. The CCP certainly never used such terminologies in PRC during the first 4 decades of it's rule relying on nationalism only since the 90's. How much of it is deflection from domestic tyranny by highlighting foreign tyranny & vast excesses of the CCP rule resulting in millions killed in the Great Purges following the Chinese Civil War , the 5 pests campaign , the Great Leap Forward , the Cultural Revolution etc is something for the Chinese people to ponder & reflect on .
What was different with China va a vis India and rest of the world is that China is a country owned by a organisation/party and it runs like a business without any well established social and international norms. It does what’s most profitable to that Organisation and has full authority, power and ruthlessness to do what it thinks best for it, just like those US corporates (apple, google,Microsoft etc).
For them profit justifies anything as long as they can get away with it. Same is true for China. And there are inherent advantages to this corporate model of governance, if you are part of that corporation.
While Counties like India have willingly adopted some well known western norms of social governance including the Democratic and Electoral systems (which CCP and Chinese trolls demonise most of the times and also claim to follow it better than others.)
These put high label of checks and scrutiny on the Ruling system that it’s almost is constant state of paralysis most of the times and functions at very slow pace.
You have to make consensus among the masses even for smaller things and there is always a risk of some people willingly opposing it thus jeopardising the whole program.
So good or bad we have chosen a different path for ourselves. And there are pros and cons to both of them.
Chineas Govt and CCP acts like a true Corporate entity unlike any other governments.
Reality is that America transferred many Technologies to china before tiananmen massacre.
Many people reply to me, I will focus on replying
1. The democratic system leads to the unification of the Indian defense industry.
I think this is wrong. Many countries in the world adopt the American democratic election system and the British cabinet system, such as Israelis and South Korea. These countries have established developed military industries. The largest customer of Israeli arms dealers is India, while South Korea has only begun to develop its military industry in the 1970s. Nowadays, K2 tanks, K9 cannons, and Zongwang explosive ships are world environmental weapons. Taiwan’s F-CK-1 fighter jets, the Wind III supersonic anti-connected ship, and the TK-3 anti-aircraft missiles are also much better than related Indian products.
Therefore, the political system is not at all a major factor affecting the development of military industry.
2. Foreign countries’ technical assistance to China,
(1) First of all, after the Korean War, persisted in starting to aid China's 156 industrial projects. Locally, large-scale industrial assistance to India has also begun. The inherent essence is to turn China into a concrete aspect of insisting on the economy. From 1960 to 1980, China had actually absorbed the technology of 1960. For example, the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979. During the period, the most equipped tank in China was the T34, and it was not until 1972 that China realized all the independent production of the T54.
During this period, India received firm and substantial assistance from Europe. Victory main battle tank and HF24 periods are the products of this period.
(2) In 1999, China gained access to technology from the West. At the same time, with the industrialization of a large number of agriculture, the working class, and the decline in fiscal revenue, Chinese society is facing a serious economic and crisis. . . India began to introduce Mirage in 1982, China bought Mirage 2000 in 1986, and France gave China the price. It is several times that of India, at 25 million U.S. dollars. India can import German MTU engines for Afghan tanks.
This picture can explain all the problems of J10
（3）Disintegration of the Soviet Union
Some technologies of the Soviet Union have finally been obtained, the most typical, su27,
India has so far mocked China for plagiarizing SU27, but India has never thought that, su27, that is the last crystallization of the Soviet aviation industry, the improvement that su27 has brought to the Chinese aviation industry is unimaginable, and the improvement it brings to the Chinese Air Force is also huge. of,
However, the related improvement work of su27 is really difficult. First, the N001VE radar lags behind (which led to the famous Gripen fighter 4:0 defeating the su27), but the improvement is very difficult. The su27 is a statically unstable aircraft, and it has any structure. All changes need to adjust the flight control, so China needs to carry out wind tunnel tests on the su27 and reverse research and development of the aircraft, replace the welding structure of the su27 with a large-scale titanium alloy structure, use a large number of composite materials to reduce weight, and replace 850KGd N001VE radar with a 250KG 1493 radar.
Switch to WS10 engine, the final empty weight of J11B is only 16900KG,
The empty weight of su30MKI is as high as 19100KG, and AL31 is used...Any TVC, canard wings,Not enough to offset this huge gap
As for the technology that China has acquired from the West through purchases and the introduction of civilian technology, in the words of China Aviation Industry Chairman Lin Zuoming, "Scattered and trivial, it can only improve the industrial structure without revolutionary improvement."
As for Chinese students studying abroad, this is a joke. Chinese students have no access to military projects. On the contrary, Indian students are much more convenient.Moreover, Chinese military companies have their own training system, and people with a background of studying abroad are often considered unreliable.
