Yeah, considering that chinese novels were basically unknown in the west till really XX century and west developed that genre independently, it would be fair.

I don't think that's fair either since the Satyricon and Apuleius' Golden Ass are also much older. There were also a bunch of novels written in the medieval period that eventually evolved into the modern through things like Gargantua and Don Quixote, which is what I think ends up confusing people.