I wouldn't worry about it too much. China's ruling party spends most of its time and energy trying not to look irrelevant, and punishing people who question its relevance. Their continued survival is predicated on taking credit for economic growth, but they're hampered in that objective by the basic nuts and bolts of a one-party state inhibiting a lot of the freedoms necessary to maximize that economic growth. As a result, they're perfectly willing to give irresponsible amounts of leeway in manufacturing, but they don't provide companies the legal protections companies demand to incorporate and do business there. One threatens the regime, the other doesn't. There's really no particular benefit to their system of government. The practical result is that their domestic industries are left well behind the cutting edge, hence the enormous emphasis on stealing trade secrets.
The J-31 is a particularly good example of this, because copying the JSF airframe makes no sense unless you have the specific doctrinal needs of the US military. The whole point of the JSF is uniformity between service branches, the airframe itself is just housing for a features list designed by committee, and a particularly good electronics package and interface.
Unsurprisingly, when the Chinese tried to copy it, they actually improved the airframe in ways you logically would if you didn't care about the features the airframe was specifically designed for, which just shows how little sense there is in copying the design in the first place. They're not stupid though, the whole point is "look what we can do", not to ever use the damn thing. They just want you to think they have a 5th gen fighter, even though it's probably 4th gen under the hood. Now if they could copy the electronics package, that would be interesting. I know they haven't though, because it's not done, because we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars utterly failing to finish it.
Last edited by [LoD]Hexen; 12/20/14 03:38 PM.
