As China’s political elite gathers for the country’s annual legislative sessions, we examine the broader forces likely to influence policies and decision-making for the coming year. In the eighth part of the series, Dannie Peng looks at recent strides made in China’s scientific and tech sectors, the country’s ambitions and the challenges it faces, particularly…
China would assist Pakistan in selecting and training astronauts and the chosen candidates would then travel to China for further training, the China Manned Space Engineering Office said on Friday after the signing of a cooperation agreement in Islamabad. Later, one or more of them will join a Chinese crew for a short-term mission aboard…
China’s state-owned industrial giants have set up nearly 100 new research hubs as part of a government initiative launched in 2022 to drive technological breakthroughs in a slew of strategic fields. The huge state-directed effort is part of a broader push by Beijing to counter Washington’s attempts to contain China’s technological progress and revitalise the…
When a group of Chinese primary school pupils with a keen interest in astronomy were asked what language the research on China’s Chang’e-6 lunar soil samples should be written in, they stopped smiling. The pupils of Fangcaodi International School, a state-run primary school in Beijing with an emphasis on science education, have closely followed China’s…
Hopes are fading that the US will respond to a Chinese offer to exchange moon samples, with no word yet from Nasa on what it could swap. Space officials in the two countries have been negotiating Chinese access to Apollo lunar samples in exchange for Chang’e-5 samples being loaned to US scientists. But while China…
For the first time in history, Chinese scientists have revealed what kind of material lies on the far side of the moon – a mixture of basalts and foreign ejecta largely different from the previous Chinese-collected near side samples of mostly basaltic volcanic rocks. Researchers said the Chang’e-6 mission samples “may result from the mixing…