I'm curious, was there also a go-ahead-and-copy-em-if-ya-like clause? Did the Russians say "You have our blessing to pirate our aircraft and create an endless stream of new variants, as long as you don't export the damn things"?
I thought the contract China signed with Russia back then was for import -> domestic assembly -> domestic production. That is, the Chinese would eventually have the license to produce indigenously. Su-27 (import), J-11A (domestic assembly of import ed sub-assembly and components), J-11B (domestic production), J-16/J-16D (complete new variant). There was no specific clause to prevent China from developing its variants. In fact, there was the implicit expectation that many follow-up orders for upgrades and/or key components such as engines would be forthcoming before the Chinese could master the art of producing their own variants or key components, if they could at all.
I'm curious, do you have any insight in any of these related clauses? The way you put it ("go-ahead-and-copy-em-if-ya-like") suggests that either you have some knowledge or some strong emotion about it. Is there any specific clause that prevents China from evolving the platform on its own? I completely understand some people for whatever reason might not be happy with the fact that China could absorb and digest the original platform and eventually come up with better variants using its own technologies (or a lot faster than expected). But that was China's ultimate goal right from the beginning from the way the contract was structured. Perhaps Russia was OK with that? Or perhaps the Chinese was underestimated back then that it was felt that was no need to put in such a clause?
So what do you know about these "damn things" as you put them? Or are you just expressing some useless and unjustified moral indignation?