How do you know this?.. Why will they use older, heavier ERA on a new light tanks?
I don't know it for a fact. I made an educated guess based on the fact that this it is a light tank and would use the lightest available Chinese ERA. Even if they do mount their latest ERA, their latest ERA is about as capable as Kontak-5. So might give some added protection against FSAPDS, but again, useless against tandem warheads.
It's main strength is our tanks having no APS & main weakness is it having 100mm frontal armour (unconfirmed, but from Chink forum) meant to stop auto-cannons.
If its only 100 mm RHAe of frontal armour, then our tanks having APS or not is not that big a problem. Then the problem is fire control. Our Mango FSPADS will be able to pierce Type-15 armour at much longer range than the 2000 meters range at which Type-15 becomes barely able to penetrate T-72 armour. But the Type-15 is a small target. It will be difficult for T-72 to target at longer ranges with a good hit probability. T-90 will still work better though.
But that 5 km range ATGM Type-15 fires could be a problem. Yeah you are right, APS is a requirement.