plawolf
Lieutenant General
I think the whole concept of reverse engineering has been completely warped, distorted and hijacked by the usual suspects in the media and by publicity-whore so-called 'experts' for their own nefarious purposes.
China did once upon a time rely on reverse engineering, that time was during the 60s and 70s, in the form of the J6, J7, elements of the J8II, all tanks and infantry weapons etc, and generally, the results were far from satisfactory because reverse engineering doesn't actually work all that well.
Without the necessary metallurgy, electronics, chemistry and managerial/project management skills as well as advanced precision tools, supercomputers, wind tunnels and countless other background knowledge and support infrastructure, you can reverse engineer all you want to imitate the external appearance of something to the most minute detail, yet it will not perform as well as the original or flat out not function at all.
It is because of this realization and the bitter taste of failure that has led China to invest so heavily and comprehensively in the full spectrum of scientific research and industrial modernization that has ultimately molded the China and Chinese military of today.
The main reason China still gets tarred with the RE brush today is a result of several complex factors.
1) Western 'experts' are still largely about 10 years behind the curve in terms of accepting China's rise. The bulk of these guys spent their formative years seeing China as backwards, primitive and hostile, much like how most of the world sees North Korea today. These guys grew up seeing only Chinese reversed engineered Migs and T-series tanks and AKs and most have a hard time psychologically in accepting how far China has come in so short a period of time, so cannot help but see everything China does through those tainted lenses.
2) Chinese engineers are generally not all that bothered about aesthetics, and value efficiency over meaningless innovation. What is means is that if Chinese engineers sees a design approach or concept that works really well, instead of starting from scratch to design a brand new thing based on the same principle that does the same job as the existing widget, they will just copy the widget and focus their time, energy and resources on the next design challenge/problem for which there isn't an existing technological solution available to copy.
This approach has helped to explain how China was able to catch up so quickly, but it does often result in Chinese products having a superficial resemblance of existing designs, which the media and their 'expert' lackies use to further their thinly veiled racist insistence that the Chinese race somehow has an innovation problem.
Now I will accept that this approach is a form or reverse engineering, but if is a far cry from the general impression of what the terms means, which the media has perverted into suggesting that reverse engineering is the wholesale and thoughtless copy and pasting of existing designs with little understanding or innovation involved, and is in fact a common practice that every firm involved in innovation does. Even vaunted exemplars of western innovation superiority like Apple, Microsoft and Intel, because the entire process of human technological advancement is one of standing on the shoulders of giants, whereby people build and expand on what has been done before to make something better.
3) In terms of Chinese commercial products, there are a vast number of disreputable firms, and often even large and reputable ones, that engage in commercial reverse engineering and blatant illegal copying of patented/copyrighted products and materials.
Since most westerners would have first hand experience of such practices, they are more pre-disposed to assume that the same applies to all facets of Chinese industry.
This is largely, but not solely the fault of the Chinese who do engage in such practices, because western corporations have also shamelessly exploited and exaggerated this tendency as a form of preemptive, negative competition strategy, and is, ironically, a carbon copy of what they did to the South Koreans and Japanese when they first burst onto the world technological and commercial stage. When you cannot compete on price, or increasingly, on quality and capabilities, you trash the image of your competitors as much as you can. In the consumer world, facts count for far less than perception and 'taste', because increasingly, it is those intangible factors that distinguish between products and brands add the most value.
Interestingly, one of the reasons western, and especially Russian military 'experts' are so quick to gang up on China is also because of this negative competition strategy. We have to understand and remember that a great many of these media-whore 'experts' are effective in the pocket of big weapons manufactures who can make or break a pundit by granting or revoking access to staff, mildly confidential tech specs and details etc. These weapons manufactures are facing a similar problem as their commercial cousins in that increasingly, it is harder and harder to compete with the Chinese in terms of actual capabilities, and they were never remotely competitive in terms of price, so they are staring down the barrel in a way, because if it becomes commonly accepted that the latest Chinese arms as good as what these western and Russian companies are offering for a fraction of the price, well, just look at the commercial markets.
This is why Russian 'experts' are usually the ones leading the charge when it comes to waving the RE flag, because they are the ones most directly threatened because they are a little behind the west, so China will catch up with them first, and also because more than their western counterparts, who can at least rely on large domestic orders as a bare minimum, the Russian military has a tiny procurement budget in comparison, so these firms are far more dependent on export orders than their western counterparts.
A clear example of this can be seen in the vicious PR campaign the Russians launched against the J11B when it first came out because they were terrified the Chinese might put that on the market. With China showing no signs of interest in putting the J11B up for sale, the shrill and panicked cries of 'cheap and inferior rip-off' have died down, and already, you can detect signs of the same trick with all the 'tech demonstrator', 'bomber' '23m+ underpowered' claims about the J20.
At the end of the day, it's mostly hot air and cheap theatrics once you see through their game.
China did once upon a time rely on reverse engineering, that time was during the 60s and 70s, in the form of the J6, J7, elements of the J8II, all tanks and infantry weapons etc, and generally, the results were far from satisfactory because reverse engineering doesn't actually work all that well.
Without the necessary metallurgy, electronics, chemistry and managerial/project management skills as well as advanced precision tools, supercomputers, wind tunnels and countless other background knowledge and support infrastructure, you can reverse engineer all you want to imitate the external appearance of something to the most minute detail, yet it will not perform as well as the original or flat out not function at all.
It is because of this realization and the bitter taste of failure that has led China to invest so heavily and comprehensively in the full spectrum of scientific research and industrial modernization that has ultimately molded the China and Chinese military of today.
The main reason China still gets tarred with the RE brush today is a result of several complex factors.
1) Western 'experts' are still largely about 10 years behind the curve in terms of accepting China's rise. The bulk of these guys spent their formative years seeing China as backwards, primitive and hostile, much like how most of the world sees North Korea today. These guys grew up seeing only Chinese reversed engineered Migs and T-series tanks and AKs and most have a hard time psychologically in accepting how far China has come in so short a period of time, so cannot help but see everything China does through those tainted lenses.
2) Chinese engineers are generally not all that bothered about aesthetics, and value efficiency over meaningless innovation. What is means is that if Chinese engineers sees a design approach or concept that works really well, instead of starting from scratch to design a brand new thing based on the same principle that does the same job as the existing widget, they will just copy the widget and focus their time, energy and resources on the next design challenge/problem for which there isn't an existing technological solution available to copy.
This approach has helped to explain how China was able to catch up so quickly, but it does often result in Chinese products having a superficial resemblance of existing designs, which the media and their 'expert' lackies use to further their thinly veiled racist insistence that the Chinese race somehow has an innovation problem.
Now I will accept that this approach is a form or reverse engineering, but if is a far cry from the general impression of what the terms means, which the media has perverted into suggesting that reverse engineering is the wholesale and thoughtless copy and pasting of existing designs with little understanding or innovation involved, and is in fact a common practice that every firm involved in innovation does. Even vaunted exemplars of western innovation superiority like Apple, Microsoft and Intel, because the entire process of human technological advancement is one of standing on the shoulders of giants, whereby people build and expand on what has been done before to make something better.
3) In terms of Chinese commercial products, there are a vast number of disreputable firms, and often even large and reputable ones, that engage in commercial reverse engineering and blatant illegal copying of patented/copyrighted products and materials.
Since most westerners would have first hand experience of such practices, they are more pre-disposed to assume that the same applies to all facets of Chinese industry.
This is largely, but not solely the fault of the Chinese who do engage in such practices, because western corporations have also shamelessly exploited and exaggerated this tendency as a form of preemptive, negative competition strategy, and is, ironically, a carbon copy of what they did to the South Koreans and Japanese when they first burst onto the world technological and commercial stage. When you cannot compete on price, or increasingly, on quality and capabilities, you trash the image of your competitors as much as you can. In the consumer world, facts count for far less than perception and 'taste', because increasingly, it is those intangible factors that distinguish between products and brands add the most value.
Interestingly, one of the reasons western, and especially Russian military 'experts' are so quick to gang up on China is also because of this negative competition strategy. We have to understand and remember that a great many of these media-whore 'experts' are effective in the pocket of big weapons manufactures who can make or break a pundit by granting or revoking access to staff, mildly confidential tech specs and details etc. These weapons manufactures are facing a similar problem as their commercial cousins in that increasingly, it is harder and harder to compete with the Chinese in terms of actual capabilities, and they were never remotely competitive in terms of price, so they are staring down the barrel in a way, because if it becomes commonly accepted that the latest Chinese arms as good as what these western and Russian companies are offering for a fraction of the price, well, just look at the commercial markets.
This is why Russian 'experts' are usually the ones leading the charge when it comes to waving the RE flag, because they are the ones most directly threatened because they are a little behind the west, so China will catch up with them first, and also because more than their western counterparts, who can at least rely on large domestic orders as a bare minimum, the Russian military has a tiny procurement budget in comparison, so these firms are far more dependent on export orders than their western counterparts.
A clear example of this can be seen in the vicious PR campaign the Russians launched against the J11B when it first came out because they were terrified the Chinese might put that on the market. With China showing no signs of interest in putting the J11B up for sale, the shrill and panicked cries of 'cheap and inferior rip-off' have died down, and already, you can detect signs of the same trick with all the 'tech demonstrator', 'bomber' '23m+ underpowered' claims about the J20.
At the end of the day, it's mostly hot air and cheap theatrics once you see through their game.