Crappy Journalism...
It is the first LARGE Chinese passenger jet, NOT the first one.
The first is the ARJ-21 regional jet (DC-9 clone. Actually built with McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 toolings) that is almost finished with testing, with the first customer delivery scheduled for about 3 months from now.
Did some work on the ARJ-21 years ago. The whole avionics deck was designed and made here in the US. The wings are Ukrainian. The rumor I heard is that whole project started when Ukraine sold them a bunch of surplus wings they made for a cancelled project. The whole project was training wheels for China. Wings from Ukraine, Engines from GE, fight computers and displays from Rockwell, Fuselage locally made but ripped off design and using MD tooling.