When China goes to the Moon… By Marco Aliberti

Abstract

When looking back at China half a century ago, the year 1966 is usually remembered for the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. But, as we learn from Marco Aliberti's stimulating When China goes to the Moon…, it was also the year when China sent its first dog into space (p. 80), one year after the first proposal to put Chinese astronauts in space. This was part of a period of huge strategic and revolutionary ambition during which Lin Biao, Mao Zedong's then putative successor, played a key role until his suspicious death in a plane crash in 1971. It was not until 1986 that the revival of China's space programme began. Aliberti's book, part of a series of studies in space policy, gives a detailed and thoroughly researched account of this programme, with a particular focus on plans for a human lunar mission. This is a balanced assessment of the programme's feasibility, covering its technical as well as strategic elements. Chapter two traces the institutions and structures through which policy is made, demonstrating the complexity and nuance required to understand Chinese policy-making processes in general. Chapter three sets out the motivation for China's lunar ambitions, showing that they are not just driven by their role in ‘regain[ing] the status of great power’ (p. 56) and the message of regime legitimacy that the achievement of successful milestones brings, but also by deeper Chinese cultural imaginings about the moon. Chapters four and five assess these plans as being broadly feasible, as long as China's development trajectory remains solid, while showing the gradual and cautious nature of their implementation (targets originally set in the 1990s had proved too ambitious).