Being able to purchase some models of some products here and there doesn’t mean you can sustain a segment of the industry through imports
They didn’t just buy them (although there was some of that). They cloned them outright. They had the manufacturing capability to make them on their own, but lacked the knowledge of how to build it themselves.
Yeah I’m not denying they cloned them, I’m saying they were cloned due to the inability to access them widely and affordably in the international market. Cloning stuff is good btw, copyright is a scam
Cloning stuff is good. Not being capable of designing and building your own is bad. It means you can never improve on what already exists.
It wasn’t for lack of engineers. The Buran rocket’s first and only flight took off and landed on 100% automation. That’s not easy. But didn’t build things in ways that could benefit people in a more widespread way.
