Surprise! All of China's military kit was developed at home????

Chinese defence ministry spokesman Yang Yujun has defended the indigenous nature of the  AVIC Z-10 attack helicopter. This follows United Technologies' (UTC) admission in June that it knowingly supplied China with a Pratt & Whitney Canada engine for the type.

Basically, the Chinese are saying "we built it on our own," while UTC has paid a $75 million fine for supplying an engine in addition to hundreds of other arms export violations.

Here is what the Chinese have to say (full text here):

A Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Thursday refuted reports that China's military attack helicopter Z-10 pirated U.S. technologies, saying the helicopter's manufacturer had used independent intellectual property rights...

"China's attack helicopters and their engines are all self-developed, and have proprietary intellectual property rights," said Yang, adding that the so-called piracy "is far from truth."

What gives? I was going to write a formal story about this statement, it was even on the day's to-do list, but I just cannot bring myself to take these comments at face value. And then, halfway through the release, the spokesman drops this bomb:

Yang said the development of China's military equipment has always followed the principle of independent innovation, and relied on its own capability in research and production.

Wow.

Where do I start? Reverse engineering the Su-27 to create the J-11B? The use of Lavi blueprints in the development of the J-10? Guys busted trying to smuggle fighter components from Russia to China? And why does the Z-9 look exactly like the Dauphin?