One question, I keep wondering is during the cold war between Soviet and US which started right after WWII, 1946, why those two hasn't bogged down by lack of engine development . They able to cranked out new jet engines for jet bomber like pipeline; For Soviet, the TU16 came out 1952, or M4 intercontinental Bomber 1956, they all got the engines needed at the time. Both US and Soviet didn't have to wait 10 yrs plus for an engine for their bomber or buy from third party.
Why such discrepancy? If Soviet and US can't come up with right engines at a tight pace, then there wouldn't be a sustained armed race. People said engine took a lot time to develop and industrial development but Soviet just came out of WWII with their industrial infrastructure destroyed and it able to entered arm race with US right after the war.
What's missing in China? If Russia didn't supply them the engines , PLAF would probably still grounded up to now.
There is nothing magical about western engine technology and nothing unusual about China's struggles to catch up.
The key term here is "catch up".
The west developed their jet engine technology from the 1940s to this date.
That's nearly 80 years of continuously R&D. The PRC did not even exist back when the west were working on jet engines.
Since China established its jet engine industry, it was only able to invest a tiny tiny fraction of the money the west has put into R&D of engines (and related tech) until fairly recently.
The west has a big lead because they have been working far longer and investing far move into engines R&D then China. Its as simple as that. Since the west all collaborate on engines, we need to pretty much take the combined R&D budgets of the likes of the US, UK and EU to compare how much China has invested thus far (that's also largely why the Russians lag behind the west in terms of engines - far bigger R&D budget of the west)
You also have to remember that the western media has a massive anti-China slant, and often goes out of their way to belittle China and downplay its achievements while magnifying any shortcomings and faults, perceived or real.
The west often tries to belittle the WS10 by pointing out it is in the same class as the AL31 or F100/F110, which first came out in the 70s and 80s.
That is deliberately misleading, since the WS10 is superior by far to 1970s or 80s vintage AL31s or F100/F110s, and should be on par with the later versions of those engines currently still be produced today, and which were only first fielded in the 90s, 2000s or 2010, so Chinese engineers have actually made amazing process narrowing the lead from 70+ years to the 10-20 years now.
We also need to remember that we as outside observers only have a binary view of Chinese engine development.
As far as we can observe, we can only see if an engine is ready or now. So even if its 99.99% done, we can only count it as not ready right up until that final 0.01% work had been completed (in fact probably well after, since its only after engines are seen in flying, frontline planes that we can declare it operational).
So even that 10-20 year difference is likely to be a lot more than the reality, since we know from various leaked reports that China is working hard on the WS15, which currently only the US has fielded something of that class).
Thus it looks like Chinese engine development makes sudden bursts of progress (which feeds into the self-serving western suspicions about Chinese spying or copying), which in fact the real progress made is far more gradual, and it is only our ability to obverse it that is flawed.
We also need to remember that even the west has had plenty of headaches when they furst developed modern turbofan engines.
The F14 was plagued by its less than perfect engines in its early life, and early F16s crashed so often they earn the unenviable unofficial nickname of "lawndart" amongst pilots and ground crews.
Its amusing how western writers can have such selective memories sometimes.
