China in Space

The next Chinese manned space mission is due to launch in June 2013, a follow-up to the Shenzhou 9 mission that launched in the summer of 2012. China is only the third country to have sent people to space, having done so in 2003, so many years after the US and the USSR competed in the space race. China's first woman astronaut, Liu Yang, took part in the 2012 mission. China has plans to build its own space station by 2020 and may decide to send astronauts to the moon. It is considered unlikely that the Chinese will be joining the International Space Station in the foreseeable due to the political tensions between China and the US.

I always find stories of Chinese advances and ambitions to be kind of amusing. After people in the US have accomplished something, a similar group in China seems to have the attitude that "they've done it, now we will too!" Chinese aspirations to the prestige and standard of living seen in Western countries are coming into reality, which is a great thing but also conjures the image of a child imitating their parents rather than finding their own independence. The Chinese space program, like the Chinese market for American beer and KFC, is expanding. I would rather hear about investment strategies that do not mimic those of the US, such as Chinese investment in Africa, because if we're merely being copied then innovation isn't really taking place.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20280860