We can't tell what's going on exactly, but it appears that the twisty E81 that we saw a while back could've very well been a genuine article -- either that, or it was scooped up well ahead of release in China and cloned ages before Nokia had intended the phone to be announced.
The GSM selection ushered into China foreign network equipment and mobile phone vendors (Ericsson and Nokia, by holding important GSM patents, occupied an advantageous position for GSM network and handset development, which left Chinese firms in catch-up mode).