FPI / October 25, 2024

Geostrategy-Direct

By Richard Fisher

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictator Xi Jinping wants to conquer Mars, but his government apparently did not want his space engineers to update the world on China’s plans to get there, at the recent 75th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), this year held from Oct. 14 to 18 in Milan, Italy.

The IAC is an annual “Mecca” for space engineers and all manner of space geeks; This year about 10,000 attended including a large number from China, where many present papers and almost all take notes and pictures to report on rest of the world’s new space technology, space science and space plans that could benefit China.

In a June 2021 presentation, the China Academy of Space Launch Technology (CALT) outlined a possible Chinese manned mission to Mars. / Chinese Internet

As China is now a major space power that has eclipsed Russia and is rivaling the United States, there was much anticipation for the Wednesday Oct. 16 session on “Human Exploration of Mars,” in which Wang Xiaowei of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT) would present a paper titled, “Development Roadmap and Mission Architecture Design For Human Mars Exploration Mission.”

However, at the last minute and without warning, Wang’s presentation was cancelled, which is a standard Chinese practice at international exhibitions and other fora, to deny transparency of key Chinese developments that could provide insights to or otherwise assist foreign rivals.

But luckily, in a Sept. 23 Chinese language posting on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) provided a report on a meeting of its CCP “Party Leadership Group,” that provided rare insights into a June 25 speech by CCP leader Xi Jinping on the CCP’s role in leading China’s space program and its future tasks — a speech that likely will never be revealed publicly in full.

This Party Leadership Group meeting was chaired by space engineer and former municipal CCP official Dr. Chen Mingbo, who the previous March 15 was reported by China Daily of having been appointed as Chairman and Party Chief of CASC, China’s largest rocket and space company that also controls CALT.

Chen was reporting on Xi Jinping’s June 25 meeting with the CASC team that ran the recent Chang’e-6 unmanned Moon probe mission that returned Moon samples from the far side of the Moon, after which Xi, “delivered an important speech, which provided guidance and direction for the development of the aerospace industry.”

Chen and CASC wanted to affirm the centrality of the CCP’s leadership over China’s space programs, saying about Xi’s speech, “This fully reflects General Secretary Xi Jinping’s high attention to the aerospace industry and major aerospace engineering tasks, and his care and love for the aerospace science and technology team. It points out the direction for the development of my country’s deep space exploration projects in the new era.”

Full Text . . . . Current Edition . . . . Subscription Information

Free Press International

  Xi Jinping tells his space engineers he wants to conquer Mars