no need to politely say "one person", when that person is participating in the conversation. Btw that one person has posted an old video of He Zhuojia, where she was supposedly a different player. I challenge you to go through that vid and find me a single chop block where she wasn't out of position, good luck with that.
Now, I don't say it's evil, because the rumored practice doesn't exist, therefore isn't evil. What Junting posted differs drastically from what the article you posted tells. There is no "many Waldners and Samsonovs", which main CNT players "play against every day" - direct citations. There are players, who happen to play a somewhat similar style to some other player. Example: He Zhuojia and Ai Fukuhara. They are then asked to mimic them during preparation for major tournaments. That's the bit confirmed by Junting.
Then there's the notion that they keep the style and even benefit from it and go through the ranks. Again, watch that old video and find any differences from today's He Zhuojia. Wang Manyu clones Miu Hirano and is suddenly a top athlete? One, their gamestyles are nothing alike. Two, she was two times world champion in juniors before there was Miu Hirano. Her breakthrough, much like that of Chen Xingtong, didn't come suddenly, as if caused by the supposed change in style, it was a long and steady progress. The only real suspicious case would be Sun Yingsha, who plays very similarly to Hirano. But then again, she was on her way to the main team long before Hirano. She was in Super League from very young age.
Finally, of course they do pick up whatever JNT or any other team comes up with. Shovel serve? Check. Banana flick? Check. Strawberry? We've even seen Zhang Jike practicing it. But when people label that as cloning, copying or whatever you wanna call it - that's straight bullshit. Literally everyone in the sport incorporates all these things in their play. If someone invents a style that's succesful, it becomes public domain and you see others adopting it. No one calls that cloning. You don't see people saying "Ishikawa is a CNT clone", which she very much is by your standards. But saying Sun Yingsha is Miu Hirano 2.0 is fine for some reason. I won't even go into how nonsensical it is, that CNT has "cracked" Miu Hirano and rendered her style useless against them, but at the same time Sun Yingsha and Wang Manyu, merely clones of Hirano, continued enjoying success against their teammates. It just makes zero sense but people will still repeat "oh there's a million clones of Ito in Chinese provincial teams now, her days are numbered".
