Are the Chinese models actually catching up or are they just distilling the frontiers? If it's all just distilling then they'll always be behind.
Who told you they were distilling? Why might they say this? Think. It’s like complaining that the top student only does well by going to office hours instead of mindlessly reading textbooks.
Well that and also benchmaxxing.
There's no reason they can't build their own models from the first principles. They have the hardware, energy, and enough CS scientists.