If you want to get an idea how Chinese do technology, here is a rather odd analogy..
think of auto tuning or recall any of those Pimp my ride programs. So say if the Chinese got their hands on a BMW 3 series from the late 90s.. while the rest of the world is in 2014 . They would make the EXACT BMW first down to the last micron. Then they would scrounge around the world market and learn about an engine from a 2006 car which might be more powerful but less sophisticated.. they would put that in there. By the time the 2015 model for the BMW comes out, the Chinese have tuned the Engine(assisted by calling in a guy from Brabus who while they dont do BMWs.. still know their engines ....unofficially over the weekend in return for booze and women) in that BMW to give similar performance figures as the new civic, modified the suspension to match it.. and the interior they just copy exactly from the new model. That still leaves the old electronics from the original, and one in the real deal new BMW is a proprietary software from BMW to give you all the media and extras. Well, it just turns out that the factory from across the river makes an android tablet that does exactly all that the BMW one does. Fit that into this odd hybrid, and you have a car that while not exactly the 2016 BMW 3 series. Is pretty good at being in the same 2-3 seconds or so it around a standard racing track..and they call it the Yangtze 3 Gorges series. The funny thing is, that by this time.. they have learnt how to pretty much replicate the engine of the new BMW because a student they sent out back in the 90s to Germany did their internship and first job in BMW and is now back to let them know how to do most of it..but that is for the Yangtze 3 gorges series 2016 model.
What the Chinese had in the 90s.. is not what they have today. They are still way behind, but to think that their tech is entirely Russian copied is rather narrow thought.