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The Chinese can take existing technologies/designs and modify them for their own use, improving upon them. Their human spacecraft appear to be based upon Russian technology, but with a number of improvements (including larger size). Same for their spacesuits.
There are weaknesses to trying to do things this way and one of the big problems is that the Chinese have developed a culture that relies upon borrowing/stealing rather than innovating. As a result, they have trouble at creating their own technologies.
And there are key technologies that they really struggle with. For instance, they have always had problems with jet engines. They have tried to copy Russian jet engines for decades, but their own are really bad (then again, Russian engines aren't so good either). Recently I read an interesting article in Aviation Week about the Chinese seeking to buy new Sukhoi fighter planes. The article noted that it will be interesting to see how many replacement engines they buy with the aircraft. If I remember correctly, the article indicated that 1 replacement engine for every 4 operational engines would be an indication that they are actually seeking the engines to power their stealth aircraft--in other words, 1/4 is too high a rate if all they wanted was extra engines. And the reason they would be buying extra engines is because their own engines are lousy.
There are weaknesses to trying to do things this way and one of the big problems is that the Chinese have developed a culture that relies upon borrowing/stealing rather than innovating. As a result, they have trouble at creating their own technologies.
And there are key technologies that they really struggle with. For instance, they have always had problems with jet engines. They have tried to copy Russian jet engines for decades, but their own are really bad (then again, Russian engines aren't so good either). Recently I read an interesting article in Aviation Week about the Chinese seeking to buy new Sukhoi fighter planes. The article noted that it will be interesting to see how many replacement engines they buy with the aircraft. If I remember correctly, the article indicated that 1 replacement engine for every 4 operational engines would be an indication that they are actually seeking the engines to power their stealth aircraft--in other words, 1/4 is too high a rate if all they wanted was extra engines. And the reason they would be buying extra engines is because their own engines are lousy.
