You're thinking of Appollo-Soyuz, which happened in the 70's. the first space docking was in the Gemini program, Gemini 8, which docked to an american Agena upperstage.
The Chinese vehicles in the article were robotic. The electronics did the docking, not a pilot. That seems like a reasonable accomplishment, even if somebody in "The West" has done it before.
"We can never count on other countries to sell their mature technologies to us, so we have to rely on our own, ..."
Especially considering the large amount of hacking of western technology companies and government that is originating from Chinese military universities.
These photos seriously look more like underwater photos than space photos. That supposed space-walk China had clearly showed bubbles coming from the spacesuits. ... Bubbles. In Space. Mhm...
Funded it? Are you talking about the US's financial relationships with China? That's just trade. If you're implying espionage, that's a bit of a stretch, at least for the US; the carrier rocket used is rather similar to a Soviet/Russian Proton, though scaled down, while the orbiters are Soyuz-like. The US hasn't produced a large hydrazine rocket in decades, and has never produced a Soyuz-like orbiter, so espionage there is improbable.
Unless you're making a talking-head argument about China owning the US treasury, the only way the US "funded" this is via the publicly available information on NASA's work, in which case you have to mention the Soviet Union/Russia, too.
They don't need to steal the tech. They can just send their students to our universities and we'll teach it to them. I think that's how they developed their nuclear technology - they just went to MIT and we showed them how it was done.
I was saying that I think that's what the parent is talking about.
There have been many examples of cloned tech in China's recent history, though, so I'm not sure where your outrage is coming from. I didn't say anything about Chinese people as a race.
Why would they not steal technology? It's profitable. It's good for the PRC elite, it's good for the chinese people. The only losers --and in the space exploration game I'm not sure there are any-- are foreign IP owners or states.
Ah, the other version of China-as-a-bogeyman -- "technology" being "stolen".
Hint: The only reason China gets special attention is it's not a member of Club West. Funny how quickly stories of industrial espionage by NATO members drops out of the media -- if it ever appears in the first place.
The first time that two spacecraft have ever docked in orbit was, I believe, the Gemini/Soyuz joint missions in the middle of the previous century.