Dieser interessante Kommemtar zum chinesischen Raumflug erschien heute im DAILY MIRROR. Er geht weniger auf Flug selbst ein, sondern gibt einen kurzen Abriss über die politischen, technischen, militärischen und wirtschaftlichen Entwicklungen der letzten Zeit und was in Zukunft von China zu erwarten ist.
CHINA BLASTS AHEAD Oct 16 2003
US shocked as space mission helps propel a sleeping giant into the super league
By Nick Henegan
FROM a remote launch pad in the Gobi desert, China made history yesterday... and set alarm bells ringing around the world.
Craning his neck, President Hu Jintao grinned as the Shenzhou-5 rocket carrying astronaut Yang Liwei soared into orbit.
The Communist leader brimmed with pride as his nation became just the third country to put a man into space.
During the 21-hour mission the 38-year-old pilot orbited the Earth 14 times, eating Chinese food designed for space travel.
For some, it was just another Chinese cameo on the world stage but for others the launch marked a new level in a battle for world domination.
Many believe the world's largest nation will soon fulfil its potential and become a global superpower - with the rocket launch a potent military symbol.
Whatever the reasons for Lt Col Liwei's mission, it is the latest attempt by China's leader to push his nation into the spotlight.
Beijing is set to host the 2008 Olympic Games and Shanghai is bidding to hold the 2010 Expo, a celebration of the country's culture and business.
The skyline of Shanghai is now filled with extravagant and gleaming skyscrapers and Beijing is demolishing its historic single-story neighbourhoods to make way for sleek high-rises.
The capital is surrounded by a multi-laned motorway and the lavish hotels rival anything in the West.
The government plans to spend £14billion on the capital in the next four years, including a £180million bubble-shaped opera house and a £360million HQ for the state broadcaster.
Thirty years ago, it was all so different. During the Cold War, the majority of China's 1.3billion people lived in the countryside and the main export was agricultural produce.
Now, its primary industries are manufactured goods - electronic gadgets, toys and sportswear are churned out to Western nations.
IT now has the fifth largest economy in the world and is the globe's third largest exporter after America and Japan.
Meanwhile scientists are at the cutting-edge of medical and technological developments
In August, a team led by Hui Zhen Sheng was the first to successfully use cloning techniques to create hybrid embryos, containing a mix of DNA from both humans and rabbits.
More than 100 of the hybrids, made by fusing human skin cells with rabbit eggs, were allowed to develop for several days before being destroyed, to retrieve stem cells which can be used to treat diseases including Parkinson's and diabetes.
The Chinese Academy Of Sciences has also developed a robot, called Aim. Scientists hope it can treat highly infectious patients if there are future outbreaks of Sars or similar diseases.
The Chinese have also begun to excel in sport.
In the past five years, Chinese athletes have smashed world records in swimming, cycling, track and weightlifting.
Dr Michael Dillon, a senior lecturer in Modern Chinese History at Durham University, says: "The space programme, the Olympics, the innovations are symbolic.
"They are designed to show that China is a major power. They feel that there is something genuinely special about Chinese civilisation.
"However, over the past 200 years it has been put down by the West - which they see as a major humiliation.
"The government now wants China to be treated seriously on the world stage and not seen as some underdeveloped backwater.
"By sending this man into space they are showing that they are on the same level as the US and the former Soviet Union.
"But because those countries are scaling down their missions, the Chinese could even argue that they're ahead."
China has the potential to be one of the largest economies in the world - and America is already worried.
Rob Ginis, an investment strategist with Barclays Global Investors in San Francisco, says: "Within the next 10 or 15 years China could match America.
"In terms of producing goods and services, it's right up there and may become a world power. But structurally, it must move away from its Communist past. That's already happening and is likely to continue."
Director of Investment strategy with the Fyshe group, Jeremy Batstone, agrees.
"What is happening in China is similar to the situation in Japan between 1950 and 1990 but China is five times the size of Japan. It is nothing short of an economic and political revolution."
But it is not just China's booming businesses that concerns Washington, they are also suspicious of China's potential military might.
DR Dillon adds: "The rocket launch also has a military element. There is a clear push in China to make sure that America isn't the only country with weapons in space.
"As part of China's move to great power status there's a concern for its own defence and it is likely that within the next 10 years, there will be a commercial, political and potentially military rivalry with America."
That rivalry has already begun. In 1999, the US government claimed a Chinese spy, Wen Ho Lee, had stolen the secrets of all its nuclear weapons and the country was busy building its own versions.
Two years later, there was a diplomatic crisis when a US spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter, crashing off the coast of southern China, and in April, Chinese-born Katrina Leung was arrested along with her FBI agent lover, and accused of being a double agent for Beijing.
The war in Iraq has convinced the Chinese leadership that America is pursuing a policy of "neo-imperialism" that could prompt confrontation.
Earlier this year, Hu Jintao said Beijing was paying close attention to global developments so that "China can make good preparations before the rainstorm and seize the initiative".
As far back as the 1950s the US government was suspicious of China. Ironically, the man who spearheaded the Chinese space programme used to be a US army officer and worked at the heart of American missile development until he was forced to return to China for being a Communist.
Tsien Hsue-shen, now 92, then led the building of China's first nuclear weapons and the country's first satellite launch in 1970.
BUT don't assume China is ready to embrace the kind of space race programme and consumerist boom that the US saw in the 60s.
The Chinese aren't ready to unshackle themselves from the command economy just yet.
Dr Qi Luo, a lecturer in Chinese business at Leeds University, claims China's booming economy and grand public gestures are all designed to keep the Communists in power at home.
"It is about the Communist Party trying to justify its rule," he says. "It's saying: 'America can do it, Russia can do it, only under the Communist Party can China do it.'
"The party thinks that if it can develop the economy and bring prosperity, it proves it is legitimate to rule without a ballot.
"Internally, it is trying to say to its people that it can lead them to achieve all the great goals. Yet, externally, it is trying to say to people in America: 'We are still a developing country and what we are doing is very modest and for a peaceful purpose.'
"It is all part of a strategy of propaganda."
Propaganda or not, China is already a player on the world stage and, amid much trepidation, its role will keep growing.
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