Beijing: China Tuesday refuted as "groundless" reports that its new J-15 carrier-borne fighter jet, which successfully landed on the country's first aircraft carrier, is a copy of Russian Su-33.
"It is not surprising that some western media quickly responded to the inspiring news with criticism and taunts, since the J-15, with an unfinished coating during the exercise had a similar aerodynamic shape with the Russian Su-33 jet", state-run Xinhua news agency said in a commentary today.
"There is always criticism of China for the crime of "plagiarism" when the country makes progress in military hardware development, questioning China's respect to others' intellectual property rights and belittling the hardware's technological and tactical qualities", it said.
"It is true that China used to rely heavily on imported Russian military aircraft, warships and other hardware to modernise its troops due to a lack of independent innovation abilities, it said. But people should not use that as an excuse for criticising Chinese people who have made tough endeavours and even sacrifices in developing the J-15's engine, fire-control system, electronics system and other key components", it said.
The write up claimed that China has already made breakthroughs in manufacturing home-made turbofan engines which provides high-performance home-made fighter jets with a strong "heart."
The J-15's successful landing on 'The Liaoning' aircraft carrier last week, ended on a sad note as the Chief engineer of the fighter jet project Luo Yang died during exercise.
"Those with ulterior motives should never underestimate China's capabilities of independent innovation in national defence technologies", it said.
China developed nuclear weapons and artificial satellites when the country was still in poverty and hardship.
It has also made significant breakthroughs in a series of key technologies, including the manned space programme, it said.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, November 27, 2012, 18:25