On a totally unrelated note why are the Chinese spending money on researching a small arms weapon design when they can just use the American designs which are now out in the open.
they kopied AR-15 WAYYY before we did
search Norinco CQ
they have virtually kopied all other firearms even HK416
and i believe they must be having some kopied production of captured INSAS too
but thing is, Chinese have their own firearms doctrine and needs and demands, in past when they were aligned with the Soviets and got most of their defense needs satisfied from them, they kept kopies of Soviet firearms like SKS, AK-47 etc
but experience have taught that being dependable on others is not a correct thing for steady supplies; so they did their best to go self reliant in every possible way regd defense needs at least
and no, it's not true that they just "kopy", they have made their own firearms in past of varied designs
for e.g.
this Type 63 rifle, their first ever domestically designed and produced carbine // assault rifle thing
to Type 81
^these both were in principle same working design internally,
basically an AK pattern rotatig bolt on SKS rifle
but Type-63 mostly failed because they housed metal receiver section in a wood stock = body, and they learnt from experience the design was fragile as it suffered cracks and issues
Type-81 mostly solved it all as they made it with metallic body, and became their service rifle for long until they decided to go ahead with their own calibre after experimenting with american and soviet intermediate calibre ammo and all;
finally made Type 95 which became standard before end of the millenium etc
there are other notable unique designs from them, just refer this wikipedia page to get some idea
en.wikipedia.org
