I consider real Chinese catchup to the US is slower than it might seem because softskills are hard to measure. In my opinion, Chinese do make progress, but are at risk to overestimate their softskills. Chinese military systems still could surprise the US, but I doubt very much that they can outclass US systems unless the cooperation with Russia improves. As long as Russia is wary about technology exports to China, they are at a disadvantage in total accumulated know-how. The value of know-how is not just making a system work, but includes unsuccessful developments that were shelved because they contain valuable lessons as well and might fare better in combination with new approaches.
Kurt
Your statement is based on nothing but personal bias,made by uninformed person.We heard a lot more about weapon development from the west because of the free press and the need for the government to justify the huge defense expenses.
It is also ridiculous to assume that China doesn't learn from the failed or shelved project. There are plenty of example. WS 10A chief engineer is the man behind the failed project WS 6. J10 project succeed because of the lesson learned from the shelved J9 project
But because China is authoritarian government, it doesn't need to revealed their weapon development. Just because it is not on the press doesn't meant that it doesn't exist. China s behind is conventional weapon because their budget is way smaller than US
They don't need to reinvent the wheel and if need be why not reverse engineer. And only do research and development on the strategic weapon. Therefore they make efficient use of limited budget .
But China is not behind in the strategic weapon development, Just name it . ASAT? China does it. ABM? China is as good as US, Satellite ditto. High Power Laser China China did test it in 2006 check this one out
Nuclear weapon warhead China is as good as US. The latest US miniature warhead is W66 and China posses similar design
Orbital unmanned spacecraft ? China did successfully test X37B like space orbital vehicle
Supercomputer? China have the fastest supercomputer last year Chinese supercomputer was the fastest.
This year they developed their own supercomputer with their own microprocessor..
You named it the list goes on and on.
China is behind in number of conventional weapon because China commit smaller number of their GDP to weapon purchases !.5% vs 4.5% in US
On your statement that China need Russia is ridiculous. China has stopped buying finish weapon or platform since a long time ago. Except for Jet engine for the spare of the legacy fighter like SK 27, China doesn't buy anything from Russia
In fact in space faring, Russia failed numerous time it become embarrassing. Let see. The Glosnas satellite lost in space, The Mars deep probe Phobo Grunt lost, The space truck to international space lab. failed, Russian military sat failed
Bulava ICBM is not deployed yet after what 18 years of development?
In fact thing like AESA radar China is well ahead of Russia. Russia has not yet have a production model of AWAC or AESA for the fighter
REad this one
2) Chinese Defence Products Today: State-of-the Art
Chinese defence products were once thought of as being moderately capable copies of previous-generation hardware that contained attributes of Russian, European and Israeli designs. Some of those bloodlines can still be seen in their designs, but the products now being seen at an expo like CIDEX show that Chinese firms have capabilities that approach first world industrial, state-of-the-art levels of sophistication.
Today the former students (the Chinese) have become the masters. Chinese industry now has the ability to produce components that the Russian electronics industry (after almost two decades of no investment by their government) is no longer capable of either designing or manufacturing. The initial failure rates on the production of transmit/receive (T/R) modules for the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) radars being designed for the Mikoyan MiG-35 and the Sukhoi T-50/PAK-FA 5th-generation fighter, for example, were so high that it would have bankrupted any western firm involved in a similar programme.
Not surprisingly, this year’s CIDEX show saw groups of Russian specialists going through the halls and looking for components that they could source out of China to be utilised in Russian-designed weapon systems. Russian specialists will point out that they are now at a huge disadvantage to the Chinese in two very significant respects.
One is that the commitment by the central government in resources to the defence electronics sector is both sustained and serious. “They can take a field where there is nothing but flat land and wild grass,” said one Russian company representative, “and the next thing you know there is a full-blown factory or design centre there turning out a world-class product.”