Patriot style means they have both the search and fire control radar on the same vehicle, if not the same panel. But that's not true of the HQ-9. Like the S-300, HQ-9 uses a separate search radar and fire control radar, such as Type 305A and HT-233. That gives better redundancy, and an added layer of risk to the attacker. For example, against SEAD, only the search radars are used to scan the sky, but the fire control radars are kept quiet. If the SEAD aircraft strikes at the search radars, they won't know where the fire control radars are until those radars are illuminating them and missiles are already on the way. Destroying the dedicated search radars will not shut down the fire control radars which may have a search and track option on their own.
Having the search radars separate means you are open to using different search radars, including metric wave radars that work on VHF/UHF.
In the case of the Chinese S-400s, I suspect the Russian fire control radars may also be able to link with the existing network of Chinese search radars, including those metric wave AESAs as well as the Type 305A and 305B used with the HQ-9 complex.
Having dislocated search radars means these search radars can serve not just S-400s, but older S-300s, HQ-9, HQ-22, HQ-12 and HQ-16 batteries.
HQ-16 radar system is unique for having a dual band radar system, so it may be able to do search and fire control both in the same panel, but it still works with a dedicated search radar.
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It's more like a self-admission than anything, we shouldn't take it personally, but actually pity them because they have to do mental gymnastics to feel proud of something.
