China Unveils Plans to Send Astronauts Aloft by Year 2000

In a sign that China intends to develop great-power prestige in the coming decades, the government announced Tuesday that it plans to send astronauts into space by the year 2000.

China will first develop the technology for a manned spacecraft and conduct practice launches with no astronauts aboard, the official New China News Agency reported, quoting a document released by the State Commission of Science and Technology. Then the manned flights will occur, the agency said.

“Before the year 2000, China hopes to renovate and improve its space launch facilities at the Jiuquan, Taiyuan and Xichang launch sites and build technology quarters, launch quarters, return quarters and living quarters for the manned missions,” the report added. Jiuquan is a town in Gansu province, near the western end of the Great Wall; Taiyuan is the capital of north China’s Shanxi province, and Xichang is in central China’s Sichuan province.

“China is also hoping to build a space station capable of conducting scientific experiments,” the news agency said. “It is expected that the space station will gradually develop into a laboratory capable of processing and producing new materials.”

China already has a strong space program capable of launching satellites, and it has developed related technology for nuclear missiles.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union not only threatening the future of the Russian space program but also producing rapid cutbacks in military spending by the former Soviet republics, a manned space program in China could carry serious long-term implications in the military field as well.

China is one of the world’s most advanced nations in missile and space technology. It has 60 intermediate-range single-warhead nuclear missiles, plus one nuclear-armed submarine, according to Western estimates.