[Cincinatus' Wife]

China Announces 2005 Space Plans --Say space arms race has begun---[Excerpt] Like the United States in the 1960s, China has used the prospect of reaching for the stars as a motivating force for patriotism. Xinhua earlier this year praised lunar exploration as having an ``immeasurable usefulness to raising national prestige and inspiring the nationalistic spirit.''

China successfully launched unmanned Shenzhou, or ``Sacred Vessel,'' spacecraft on Long March rockets in 1999 and this year - pushing forward Chinese plans to join the United States and Russia as the only countries to have launched manned vessels.

While building its space programs, China is also concerned that space could become an expensive battleground in any future conflict. Beijing is especially unhappy with U.S. plans to build systems to shield the United States from missile attack.

``Some powers in the world are on the way to militarizing outer space, not peacefully exploring,'' the China Daily quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry official Huang Huikang, who has worked with other nations' space programs, as saying. [End Excerpt]

[gulfcoast6]

One can only guess what all they got in the way of information during the Clinton administration to assist them in reaching all kinds of goals.