No, I do not believe it. Here is what I think with their high bypass turbofan projects:
Currently, they are using D-30KP2 on their transport, which is really old technology and such, but since they had experience with IL-76 already, it was easy to continue purchasing it for commonality reasons vs getting the slight more advanced D-30KP3 or the much more advanced PS-90A.
Now, PLAAF has the goal of achieving using domestic options for engines, so that's why we have these development. The engines themselves have enough thrust for the large transport, but their fuel efficiency is not really comparable to modern airliner turbofan engine.
First with WS-18, which is already certified, they have a domestic version of D-30 engine with more advanced components. Let's just say this will be comparable to D-30KP3 and that's what will be on Y-20 to start off. They can also replace the H-6K bomber engines with WS-18 in the future, although they seemed to have imported enough D-30KP2 for a fairly large H-6K or H-6U force. I think they originally ordered that to hedge the possibility that WS-18 would not be ready for Y-20, but now that is not the case anymore.
After that, they are in advanced development of WS-20, which apparently uses the core of Taihang. We've heard that this should have similar bypass ratio and efficiency to PS-90A. That will probably be sufficient for the air force. Airliners are extremely sensitive to the engine they use, since that's typically where the biggest improvement in fuel efficiency comes from and every dollar matters. For PLAAF, a less efficient engine means a little shorter range, but it should still have enough thrust to carry the different payload. If WS-20 is 10% less efficient than something else, it's not going to be end of the world.
For commercial airliner projects, engines simply have much higher requirements. The 2 major projects that I have heard about are SF-A and CJ-1000A. The first one is like WS-20 based on Taihang core. The second one is using WS-15 core apparently. The one advantage they have over WS-20 is that they can use imported components, since they are not military engines. So they have access to certain suppliers that WS-20 might not have access to. SF-A is supposedly comparable to CFM-56-5B engines which came out in the mid 1990s but was really improved in the mid 2000s. If we are to say that Chinese engine developer was comparing SF-A to the latter CFM-56-5B engines, then they would be probably 10 to 15 years behind fuel efficiency standard. Unfortunately, there was a big leap in engine technology in the recent years with GTF coming out and that has improved efficiency by 15% over CFM-56-5B engines. It's hard to say when CJ-1000A will be ready and it it can reach that level of efficiency.
China's large population with a hunger for higher education and drive for a better life had always made them the envy of the world for millenniums to build such a thriving continuous civilization without ever having to adopt Western religious institutions. I think that's why that has bothered a lot of them (not all).
