Your claim is not true. Years ago, according to The Jamestown Foundation think-tank, China had imported atomic clocks from Switzerland.
[tt_news]=4048
"China appears to have far to go before it can bring this goal to reality. A critical component of navigation and positioning satellites is timing technology. GPS, for example, uses very precise atomic clocks to perform its calculations. China, on the other hand, lacks atomic clock technology that can survive the harsh space environment. To compensate,
China has purchased rubidium atomic clocks from the Swiss company Temex. These clocks are three times less accurate than the clocks to be used on the Galileo satellites. According to one source, China has been working on atomic clock technology since 2000 with limited results, but may close the gap in three to four years (Space News, June 19, 2006)."
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"Monday, 19
January 2009
COMPASS/BeiDou Status
According to Chinese officials China plans to launch 10 Compass satellites during the next two years using the Long-March 3 rocket launcher. After the launch of the first test satellite in April 2007, called COMPASS-M1, this would be the real start of this interesting GNSS system.
China plans to establish an independent global satellite navigation system, called COMPASS/BeiDou-2, by launching 30 satellites before 2015. The system will make China independent from foreign systems like GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo. The 2015 time frame is similar to the current European Galileo time schedule, so it will be an interesting "battle" who will have the system fully operational first!
European officials have been surprised to learn that the first Compass/Beidou medium Earth satellite, COMPASS-M1 launched on April 14, 2007, is providing substantially better atomic-clock timing precision than was expected. China had purchased atomic clocks from a Swiss company, but these were said at the time to be an older technology."
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"
The Most Accurate Time Signal
“Global satellite navigation involves a combination of aerospace and atomic clock technology, representing a unity of time and space,” introduced Liu Qixu, chief engineer of China National Satellite Navigation and Positioning Application Administration Center. “The accuracy of a satellite positioning system depends on the accuracy of atomic clock.”
Atomic clock research had experienced a 20-year stagnation in China. The country used to entirely depend on imported high-precision timing instruments and received only GPS time. “In the 1970s we had ample funding for research, but later financial support began to dry up until there was virtually none, so we were only able to conduct basic research,” recalled Wang Yiqiu, one of the earliest Chinese researchers on the atomic clock.
In the 21st century, research on atomic clock technology and national time frequency system resumed. Thus far, Beidou is the most accurate among the global timing services that have published their accuracy data. It provides both one-way and two-way timing services. The precision in the one-way system is 100 ns (nanoseconds, equaling to 1 billionth of a second), and 20ns in the two-way service.
Under the one-way mode, the terminal user can accomplish time synchronization by receiving navigation signals instead of connecting with the central earth station. Under the two-way mode, the terminal user needs to interact with the central station and apply for timing. The central station will calculate the time differences and send the data back to the user via satellite.
The Beidou high-precision timing system has been incorporated into China’s power grid, supervising the status of all clocks in the network at any given time. Furthermore, it can automatically control all clocks in the network, realizing remote time intervention and adjustment. Therefore, China has solved the problem of time synchronization over the power network and holds independent intellectual property rights for the technology."
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Compass satellite-G1 uses Chinese atomic clock and G2 uses Swiss one. It's just a test to compare two kinds of atomic clocks. Now, the other 28 satellites of the Compass system choose Chinese atomic clock, which is developed by 203 institute as their payloads. Swiss clocks become back-up. Of course, I know most western media will selectively ignore some news such as this, so you just know "China ordered 30 atomic clocks in Switzerland".
This person is the main designer of Chinese atomic clock of Compass system, if you can understand Chinese. As far as I know, the Chinese atomic clock finalize the design in 2003 which is before the purchase of Swiss ones. So, Swiss atomic clock is back-up from the beginning.
陈徐宗,1958年4月出生，江苏省苏州市人，北京大学电子学系教授，博士生导师，北京大学信息科学技术学院副院长，量子电子学研究所所长，教育部量子信息与测量重点实验室冷原子物理与量子精密测量实验室主任。
西安分院是我国导航卫星有效载荷的核心研制单位。从1992年开始，西安分院先后为我国自主研制的4颗北斗导航试验卫星提供了全部有效载荷，使我国成为世界上拥有自主导航定位卫星的国家。目前西安分院正在开展具有国际先进水平的导航卫星星座的卫星全部有效载荷研制工作，自主研发的国产高精度铷原子钟在导航试验星上得到了成功验证。在我国与欧盟合作的伽利略导航卫星系统中，西安分院承担了搜救转发分系统的研制工作，实现了我国星上设备制造首次进入欧洲市场."
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Link to source:
Development of new type space atomic clock
2009-09-14
Experiment device of coherent population trap Rb atom clock
The space atomic clock is widely used in different application fields such as navigation satellite system, deep-space application, ocean surveillance, and satellite gravity measurement. In order to solve the main problems limiting the stability of the traditional space rubidium atomic clock, two new types of space atomic clock, CPT (coherent population trapping) maser and POP (pulsed optically pumped) maser, are under development in the National Time Service Center. The CPT maser RF spectrum and POP free-induced decay signal, the symbolic signals of CPT and POP, were the second such types after the Italian INRIM in China. Now the locking and optimization of these two clock systems are going on. The low-phase noise synthesis chain is one of the best in the world. New type extended cavity diode laser is applying for patent of invention.
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China's new 2010 proposed design for space atomic clock:
