It raises interesting questions of priorities.

SHANGHAI, China – Scientists in Shanghai are developing a nuclear-powered lunar rover for the country’s first unmanned mission to the moon in 2012, newspapers reported Monday.

The six-wheeled vehicle has been under development for four years at the Shanghai Aerospace System Engineering Institute, where a laboratory has been outfitted to replicate the lunar surface, the Shanghai Daily reported.

The 5-foot-high, 440-pound rover is designed to transmit video in real time, dig for and analyze soil samples, and produce three dimensional images of the lunar surface, the paper said. In photographs, the rover appeared similar to NASA’s unmanned Spirit and Opportunity Mars explorers that were launched in 2003 and are still operating.

However, unlike the rechargeable lithium ion batteries used by those rovers, the Chinese model will eventually run on a nuclear power source to ensure a constant energy supply, the report said.

This nuclear powered lunar explorer sounds really cool. It may advance the development of new technologies. Is it, however, worth the cost in terms of China’s day to day challenges, and could the money be better spent elsewhere? I’m just asking.

I was appalled when Bush a couple of years ago in his state of the union address – when we were already in the midst of the Iraqi quagmire – made a manned flight to Mars one of the nation’s top priorities. There’s a time and a place for everything.

Sinocidal recently rebutted various complaints made against them, by pointing out some far, far worse things one can find on the internet…..

Such as an official, English-language forum of a Chinese newspaper that likes to think of itself as the “window to China”. All I can say is (having read many other posts there) if that’s China I would prefer to close the window and pull the curtains closed!

Read on…….

Sinocidal – A word from our sponsors

Older members of the blog will also find references to an old “friend” – one is glad to see he has not changed his ways.

UPDATE: A thread on the Chinadaily BBS has many amusing comments you should read, many generally pointing to why Sinocidial is right that it is heavily populated by trolls and complete fools.

The gratuitous and uncensored swearing also supports my belief that the Chinadaily moderators are completely useless and should spend more time in making the forum a fun, safe place to post, rather than delete comments for their political comment.

A commenter in the Haidian thread below leaves a link to a most interesting article in the Economist on why China’s “peaceful rise” hasn’t managed to dampen the angst of its neighbors, or anybody else for that matter. It points out the many concrete successes China has achieved over the past ten years in foreign relations, settling many issues (like its conflicts with India) peacefully and with a great deal of tact. (Which is why I constantly heap praise on Hu for his foreign policy prowess.)

But alas, for all of this goodwill and diplomacy, China’s true friends are few and far between. Almost like America in the Age of Bush.

[I]f you scour the region for China’s firm friends it is hard to find them. Even Russia, where China’s president, Hu Jintao, was this week pressing the flesh, is a fair-weather friend – or rather sees China as a foul-weather insurance policy. India and Japan, China’s other big regional counterparts, both view it with suspicion at best and, at worst, paranoia. That leaves as China’s chums a scanty list of Neanderthal dictatorships such as Myanmar and North Korea. And even their friendship does not amount to much. Far from being a loyal client, Myanmar plays China off against India and its fellow members of ASEAN. And China’s relationship, famously ‘as close as lips and teeth’, with North Korea spawned a mouth ulcer last October when North Korea let off a nuclear weapon. North Korea’s cruel but cunning despot, Kim Jong Il, exploits China’s fear that, if his vile regime collapses, China might have a strong, American-allied democratic Korea on its border.

Why are China’s neighbours not always susceptible to its charms? Of course, any rapidly emerging big power is unsettling. Like America, China can still display a penchant for unilateralism that undermines all its careful diplomacy. As it overtakes America as the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, its cavalier disregard of the global environment will become an ever-bigger issue in its foreign relations. More traditional fears also unsettle China’s neighbours. This month China’s annual budget called for another big increase (of nearly 18%) in military spending. Most analysts believe the published budget is understated – in which case, why trumpet such a big number? And why, without warning, blow up a satellite in space, as a Chinese missile did in January?

A perception therefore persists that China’s goodwill extends only so far as its interests are not affected. In its dispute with India, for example, it is the status quo power: it is happy with the present arrangements, so what has it to lose by talking for ever? In one crucial respect, however, it is far from a status quo power: its historically dubious and morally untenable claim on Taiwan. This is one big reason, other than merely acting the big-power part, for the military build-up, and could one day bring war with the real superpower.

A much better Taiwan policy is available to China. The ‘one country, two systems’formula promised to Hong Kong in 1997, which mirrored that offered to the Dalai Lama’s Tibet in 1951, was aimed in large measure at the more important goal to China of coaxing Taiwan back into the ‘motherland’. But China has sabotaged its own strategy. Like the long history of repression in Tibet, the farcical ‘re-election’ on March 25th of Hong Kong” British-trained, Chinese-adopted chief executive, Donald Tsang, by a committee dominated by China’s placemen shows how little China cares to lend substance to its promises of autonomy and democracy – even though Mr Tsang would probably have won a real election anyway.

Giving Hong Kongers the freedoms they have demanded, and talking to the Dalai Lama about the future of his homeland, would do more to impress China’s neighbours than a decade’s worth of state visits and free-trade agreements. Yet China will not yield on either front, sternly warning critics against infringing on its internal affairs.

This is one of those article where you want to quote every line and then debate it. So be sure to read it all. And then ask yourself why China’s leaders won’t get some of the more obvious points, like those in the final two paragraphs. No, I take that back – don’t ask yourself. Because you’ll only get a headache. It’s like asking yourself why Bush refuses to see that Karl Rove is bad for the country and bad for himself. It seems so obvious from our vantage point, and one can only wonder why it’s not obvious from theirs.

On a personal note, work reached the point of insanity this week, and I’ve been in the office all weekend. It will get better soon – there will be some new help in a week or so, and then in May I’ll be joined by a former colleague from Taiwan who will help lift a huge load off my shoulders. But until then, posts from me will continue to be rare, squeezed in whenever i can find a moment to myself, usually on the weekend. And when I do post, the writing will be on the slender side. For now.

Sinocidal certainly does.