It is 40 year old tech in the same sense that the Soyuz the US uses now is 50 year old tech. The basic point is that space technology has advanced only incrementally since Apollo, especially with the Shuttle ending up costing more than non-reusable spacecraft and turning out to be a technological cul-de-sac. If the Chinese want to build, according to modern technology, the most cost-effective and efficient launch system, it's going to look a lot like this '40 year old tech', albeit with better computers, more sensitive sensors and other, less obvious, improvements. I'd say that the Chinese are essentially on a par with the US in terms of space technology. (For example, the automated hazard avoidance/hover land system is quite reminiscent of what the Curiosity rover landing system had, and that was much lauded. It's a lot more advanced than the manual remote control, or 'sit and pray you don't land on a rock' landings using for the Cold War landings, and for most of the Mars probes.)
What they lack is practical experience with actually *using* this technology, which is what these missions are about.