Now, this is gonna sound really silly, but...

I have had an idea rattling around inside my skull for awhile. It's a very strange idea, so bear with me. I would not blame you for not taking it seriously, I am having a hard time myself, but I figured 'why not'?

Alright, here we go...

Alot of products are made in China. In America anyway, you flip anything made of plastic over and look at the bottom, you will probably see the words 'Made In China'.

It was during a clean up of my room, some of my little brother's old toys were on the floor, when I picked up a rather acurate toy of an M1 abrams. Looking at the bottom and seeing 'Made In China' got me thinking.

Is it possible that China, a clever and industrious people, could use the production of toys and accurate models to understand how western weapons work and even get an idea as to how to produce them? I realize there are some bits that you can not re-produce with that sort of thing, for instance figuring out how thick said M1's armor is or cannon velocity, etc.

However, I remind myself of the Soviet Union's reproduction of the B-29 from nothing more than reports and pictures, largely non descript and even fuzzy. So, as ridiculous as it sounds, alot more was done with less.

While I realize this is a plausible, but insanely unlikely, scenario, I want to know what you think. Bear In mind, I am taking this with as much salt as you probably are.

I also want to ask, do you think this may concern some western political leaders? I mean, this is zany, but there have been zanier things that have worried western politicians. (For instance, killer PLA-Trained Taiwanese Prostitutes)

So, in summation, what do you guys think? Has anyone else thought of this? In how many ways can this be debunked? (I am sure there are numerous ones)

I apologize if I sound like a moron for asking this, but I assure you, I do not take this seriously and it has just been bugging me to ask some authorities on the Chinese Military if this is even possible. I also apologize if this spins out of controll into some political argument or a debate on the current state of model building.

This is where you are wrong, the soviet Union stole 3 B-29s from the USAF. America had a deal with Russia to land its bombers in their territory to be refueled. 3 super fortresses were stolen by Russia, taken apart, and studied. Then, the russian B-29 is born. After these retired, they were sold to the PLAAF. This should change your thinking. This is nothing political so it shouldnt spin out of control.

Ahhhh...Silly Soviet-Era Propaganda! Guess that muddled things up a bit.

Thanks for helping me out there.

Well, this certainly clears things up for me as well. On some old message boards I used to frequent people liked to say, "Oh, the Russians copied the (insert Russian Plane), it looks so alike to (insert US Plane)!".

I didn't totally buy the story, but I didn't really have an explanation for why the B-29s were so similiar... thanks for the info!

in 1945, during a bombing raid on Japan, 3 USAF B-29's made an emergency landing in Soviet territory. The Russians kept the planes and Stalin ordered Tupolev to copy them. The Tu-4 essentially a Soviet copy of the B-29.

There are some forms of copying that do not require you to have the item to be duplicated. For example, the copying of concepts and designs from external/exterior view. Someone else has spent years and millions/billions of dollars in R&D to build a better mousetrap, and there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

you can copy to a certain extent, but i will like to bring an example up across from the automotive industry.

we all agree that china copies japanese cars. this being said, the majority of the componaunts are copyable while others are not as they require some more unique procedures. i will refer to the honda alumium engine blocks. simiply you cannot deduce the treatment performed on the part to allow it to be build as such - therfore copies with hte same shape and size will fail. you can determin the alloy but there is really no way of knowing how the material is worked to how it is.

thus similuarly, a toy or model does not give much, neither do the schematics on it's own. even with a physical original hardware, it is not that simple to copy.

In the begining of the PRC, much of the airforeces airplanes were copied versions of Russia's. The J-11 is also copied but are improved interiorly.

In the early 80´s China´s plastic and synthetics industry was on a low technological level. Consequently the relocation of plants producing toys and apparel from Hong Kong to Guangzhou improved China´s industrial capability level substantially during the decade from 1983-93.

Of course production of even sophisticated toys is no help in mastering complex technologies needed for modern weapon systems but this process creates an industrial basis for producing plastic materials on large scale. During the 70´s and 80´s chinese progress in copying modern western and soviet weapons (missiles, planes , radar, tanks etc) was very modest and almost all of these copies were not introduced in PLA at least not in some numbers. After the early 90´s this changed slowly and today China merges technologies from domestic and foreign sources and creates fully indigenous weapon systems (J-10, T-99, 093/094, 052 , ...list would be too long ). Although these weapons are currently no global defensetech leaders China has made steady progress and PLA will field certainly world class systems in the next decade.

Historically it is fascinating to perceive parallels in Japan´s catch up process with the west from 1880- 1940 and China´s progress in the last five decades. After the 1. WW Japan had a strong navy, relatively strong army but a very weak air force, but within two decades Japan could establish a first class army and navy airforce which was a very ugly surprise for arrogant western powers.

In the end all steps also the smallest count in the global race for power and influence and so even producing toys for kids allover the world is a small but significant step in the right direction for China.