The beginning of Chinese Suborbital launch vehicle plan is very earlier, much earlier than X-37B. It originted from a paper of Qian'xuesen(known as Tsien Hsue-shen, one founder of JPL, persecutd by McCarthyism). In this paper, he descirbed a boost-glide trajectory called Qian'xuesen trajectory. When he returned to China because of McCarthyism, he bulid a team to research aerocraft based on Qian'xuesen trajectory. Due to the weak Industrial Capacity at that time, the plan of Chinese Suborbital launch vehicle was very slow, but ererything changed since 1990s.

Nowday, there are two competitors for Chinese Suborbital launch vehicle plan, 611th institude of AVIC and 10th institude of CASC. The scheme of 10th institude is like CAV of Lockheed, a highly maneuverable warhead based on boost-glide trajectory. The scheme of 611th is more similar to a space plane based on boost-glide trajectory. Because of the experience of desining aerodynamic architecture, the scheme of 611th runs more smoothly, and there was a successful test several years ago.

I hate calling it "copycat" personally. You can read the paper of Qianxuesen if you don't understand.