FPI / March 9, 2025
By Richard Fisher
On Feb. 28 in Islamabad, Pakistan and China signed an agreement for China to begin assisting Pakistan with the selection and training of Pakistani astronauts to visit China’s manned space station.
On Feb. 28, Pakistan’s Mohammed Yusef Khan, left, chairman of the Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) and China’s Lin Xiqiang, right, deputy director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO), witnessed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif, agreed to begin training Pakistan astronauts to visit China’s space station. / Chinese internetTreated with fanfare by the state media in both countries, the agreement, witnessed by Pakistan Prime Minister Shabaz Sharif, was signed by Mohammed Yusef Khan, chairman of Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) and China’s Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO).
This agreement follows disclosures by Pakistani officials in October 2018 that Pakistan and China had agreed that China would send a Pakistani astronaut into space by 2022, to match the then Indian government intentions to send their astronaut into space that same year.
On one level this latest agreement is a China-Pakistan response to the June 17, 2024 United States-India agreement to train Indian astronauts to visit the International Space Station (ISS), with Indian Air Force officers Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair and Shubhanshu Shukla training in the U.S., with the latter scheduled to fly to the ISS in early 2025.
It is the latest gesture in a decades-long campaign by China to give Pakistan the ability to match or respond to all new elements of Indian power, ensuring Pakistan is able to do its part to assist China’s efforts to “contain” India.
China’s “all weather” support for Pakistan extends to providing modern weapons to all of Pakistan’s armed forces that match Indian’s new weapons acquisitions, its deep assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapon and missile programs and near endless economic aid, to include $65 billion — mainly loans — committed by China to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and its holding of $26.2 billion in Chinese debt —the largest in the world.
But on another level, this China-Pakistan astronaut training agreement is meant to project China as a generous space partner for its growing 14-member International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) coalition for Moon expansion, and to other close developing world partners with space ambitions.
“The signing of the [China-Pakistan space] agreement has created fresh opportunities and set a model for more developing countries to engage in international manned space collaboration,” said China’s Embassy in Pakistan on Feb. 28 on its “X” social media page.
China can be expected to pay most if not all of the expenses for the training of Pakistan’s astronauts and for their mission to visit China’s Tiangong manned space station, and it can be expected that Pakistan’s astronauts will undertake their first mission by at least 2026 — again to sustain a Pakistan façade that it can match India.
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China takes Pakistan into space added by Editor Two on March 9, 2025
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