In the ’50s, Chairman Mao Zedong complained that China could not even shoot a potato into space. Hu Jintao’s China has come some distance since then: on September 27 a Chinese astronaut went outside his vessel to walk in space, China becoming in the process only the third country in the world to conduct a successful spacewalk.
China, naturally, has used this achievement with its customary ability to shore up domestic support for its programme and for the government. Chinese television broadcast live the takeoff the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft from the Jiuquan satellite launch centre in Gansu province on September 25 and it subsequently broadcast, also live, the 13-minute spacewalk by the mission’s commander Zhai Zhigang. Live coverage is not easy to organise; it demonstrates, among other things, the professionalism and competence of China’s scientific community.
Apart from its technological and domestic dimensions this mission has international political dimensions as well. The success of this launch allows China to remain in the centre of global attention. For the last few months the world has been focused on China, and full of admiration for its organisational ability; first, because of their sumptuous organisation of the Olympics in August and then the Paralympics. Raising its international profile, stirring national pride, has benefits in terms of the Chinese Communist Party’s control of its own population. The party is expected to parade the astronauts after they return, at national day celebrations on October 1.
The present Chinese space progamme is often mentioned as a mix of a Russian help and Chinese hard work; though it would be inappropriate to minimise the contribution to this success of the Chinese intelligence agencies, and their ability to organise technological espionage. Few hard facts are known; but just a day before this launch the FBI arrested a Chinese-born physicist in Virginia, on charges of illegally exporting space launch technical data and services to China beginning in January 2003.
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