Wasn't it some small time private company in China that wanted to buy Motor Sich? They went out of business recently as reported by Caixin in some other thread.
The whole point in buying Motor Sich (manufacturer NOT developer) was for that business to secure the supply AL-222 engine which that business knows the Chinese government has orders for AL-222.
The Chinese business that paid for Motor Sich wants to own the supply of AL-222 engines that would be purchased by the Chinese government for their L-15 trainer.
China's domestic engine developers and makers are far ahead of Ivchenko Progress and Motor Sich. It's just getting one small turbofan supplied by a foreign company because no Chinese business back in those days of L-15 development had a AL-222 equivalent and there were no AVIC projects for something like this as Motor Sich was supplying AL-222.
The sale wasn't successful but it's not some important project!
This is like how the US buys a frigate from Italian ship designers and builders. It doesn't mean much except they don't bother to develop and build that frigate themselves. It certainly doesn't mean the Italian shipbuilder is somehow ahead of the US and the US needs that.
AL-222 is an engine that both Russia and China bought from Ukraine until the supply issues and the political issues between Ukraine and Russia.
Russia now produces an AL-222 alternative which I think China simply just buys from Russia.