This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Andrew Jones, a Helsinki-based reporter who over the last several years has secured a place as the go-to English-language journalist covering China’s space program. With the successful arrival of the Tianwen spacecraft in Martian orbit and the deployment of the Zhurong Mars rover, China is catching up quickly with NASA in space exploration milestones. But China’s space program also comes in for criticism for its opacity and for potentially dangerous practices — like the uncontrolled reentry of a large Long March 5B rocket in early May. Andrew gives the latest on China’s outer-space ambitions, including planned missions to Jupiter’s outermost Galilean moon, Callisto, and beyond the edge of our solar system.
7:09: A look at the China National Space Administration
13:02: Major missions done by China’s space program
24:31: U.S. hesitance toward space collaboration with China
48:39: China’s private space companies
52:53: Potential future Chinese space missions
Recommendations:
Andrew: The TV series The Expanse, available on Amazon Prime Video, the FIRST UP daily newsletter from Space News, the Axios Space newsletter, and the podcast Moonrise by the Washington Post.
Kaiser: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.
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Yukon Huang, the China economy contrarian
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Stephen Roach on the unhealthy economic codependency of China and America
Rana Mitter on studying the Nanjing Massacre
Scott Tong on his surprising family history
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When American pilots fell out of the Chinese sky
Jane Perlez on Trump’s visit to Beijing
Gary Liu, CEO of the South China Morning Post
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The China-Africa relationship, a decade after its blossoming
Authoritarian schooling in Shanghai vs. the American approach
A conversation with Chinese adoptees in the U.S.
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