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.
Kurt Campbell on U.S.-China diplomacy
The saga of CEFC and China's push into Central and Eastern Europe
Andrew Chubb on Chinese nationalism and its influence on maritime behavior
China’s security picture, from North Korea to the South China Sea
Talking trade and tech with Yasheng Huang
China's international relations, with Jiang Changjian, Ira Kasoff, and Anthony Saich
Virginia Tan on women and work in China
Introducing TechBuzz China by Pandaily, plus Joanna Chiu on Hong Kong’s illicit wildlife trade
Gao Yutong on the Chinese student experience in America
Live from Beijing: David Moser and Jess Meider on jazz in China
All sorts of swindles in the late Ming society, with Christopher Rea and Bruce Rusk
Why China and North Korea are not as close as you think: Ma Zhao and John Delury talk history
The Chinese Communist Party’s refusal to reconcile with its past, explained by Orville Schell
The Chinese student experience in America, with Siqi Tu and Eric Fish
How China’s poverty alleviation program works, explained by Gao Qin
China’s authoritarian revival, explained by Carl Minzner
Courts & torts: Driving the Chinese legal system
The China Questions, with Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi
‘Critical’ journalism in China, explained by Maria Repnikova
Kishore Mahbubani on China’s rise and America’s myopia
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