Ascent, The Japanese are indeed very capable & industrious people, rather like the Germans in that respect, but they nevertheless started with European ideas, machinery & engineers. They often improve European technology, the Arisaka rifle is an improvement on the Mauser rifle, reducing 7 moving parts to 6, thus making the rifle more reliable, but they did not invent that which they improved, Germans did. If Japan had not been opened to the West during the 19th century they would very likely still be armed with matchlocks & samurai swords as the East Asian mentality does not encourage standing out from the collective, it's well-expressed in the Japanese proverb "the nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered down". Are there any Chinese-designed weapons to speak of? No, they use Russian weapons, the Kalashnikov, Tokarev, Makarov &c. This goes for much more than armament, it applies to most things. I would agree that the Japanese have overcome this tendency & have begun to closely resemble Europeans in their ability to come up with original ideas, but it all began with the European coming as their teacher so to speak, & now they have grown to adulthood & no longer have need of a teacher.