Lets not get too excited by words like "battle proven." PN is well familiar with the medium quality of Chinese produced craft but the real reason is not what you mention.
Remember that Chinese derive their doctrine to be Saturation from the Communist Father, not Precision what we derive from our Western mother. The military hardware only portrays the military doctrine behind it. Hence, their products will continue to be about numbers, but since we are not used to that, or have money to handle it like that, we will continue to have a mismatch with the situation. Light years you say? I don't see any warp engines installed on the vessels.
Dear Sir. Eighteen years ago, Mr. Bush Jr. became president of America. This is the bellicose tyrant who laid waste to Iraq based on pure lies. Within the first 100 days of his presidency, China had forced a cutting edge American ELINT plane to land on its territory. Then, despite forceful American demands, they took their time examining it before returning the crew and the plane. Eighteen years ago China didn't have J-20, HQ-9, DF-21. Yet, they looked the world's super power in the eyes and treated them with scorn. This is a feat that even Russia is unable to match. For me, this is battle proven enough. When the world's super power can't force it's demands on you, you have already won the battle.
China, above everyone else, understands what kind of existential threat it faces. Knowing what the enemy is capable of, why would they short change themselves? Are you saying that China isn't even sincere to itself? China has a combined threat from Japan, Australia, India, America, and Britain. Not to mention Taiwan and even Singapore. If they are able to keep all of them in check, then I most certainly want their weapons.
If, for some reason, we believe that their are some quality issues with their weapons, then why are we not asking for ToT and removing the quality issues ourselves? We did this with RD-93 by acquiring maintenance of hot area harnesses from Safran. Yet, we don't go around talking about low quality Russian weapons.
A facts based comparison of Chinese quality can be obtained by looking at the cash rate of F-7 vs JF-17. Both platforms are of Chinese origin, yet we all know the quality of the Thunder. We should be applying the Thunder template to other areas. Thus will develop true brotherly cooperation. Here is a quote from the CEO of an extremely high performance Australian company that actively hides the true nature of its business: Culture eats strategy for breakfast. A culture of brotherly cooperation in increasing quality is a million times more important than the strategy of prefering Western weapons. Because culture is sustainable in the long term, whereas strategy is only as good as the assumptions it makes.
Have a good day!
@wanglaokan @royalharris