Last year China confirmed that the Liaoning will primarily be a training carrier. 

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Anyone who believes that must also believe in the Easter Bunny.  The first time this carrier is carrying a reasonably trained crew (including its air wings) the Chinese see the need it will somehow manage to make an appearance.   

Chinese engineers are well aware of automatic pilot software and how it works.

Well, almost certainly. Given that just about every piece of software written in the US in the last 20 years has been stolen by them. Especially the classified ones.

Neither the software or the sensors alone are sufficient, and you have to adapt and integrate it with the airframe as well.

 

The theory is simple, it is the implementation that is hard. And you can’t steal that.

Unless you steal the airframe too, of course.  :)

 

Chinese hackers so thoroughly penetrated Lockheed-Martin over the last ten years that there is almost nothing left to the US in the way of manufacturing advantage. At one point, Chinese engineers reportedly (AWST) "sat in" on 'secure', classified videoconferences pertaining to sensitive details of the F-22 and F-35.

 

Of course the J-20 is not *just* a stolen F-22. Just very close...