Daily Times
April 29, 2021
China first observed its Space Day on April 24, 2016, to commemorate the anniversary of the country’s first-ever satellite launch, Dongfanghong-1, back in 1970. This year, festivities kicked off in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, under the theme: Voyaging into space, pursuing dreams. This was particularly apt given that the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and its Russian counterpart used the occasion to announce collaboration on establishing the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). This has been welcomed by both scientists and space enthusiasts around the world, not least because the project is open to international cooperation.
There is much for Beijing to celebrate, including the upcoming landing of its first independent Mars probe. The Tianwen-1 and the craft reached Mars’ orbit this February and is expected to ‘touch base’ at the Utopia Planitia in mid- or late May. This is not to forget the construction of the Ch
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Outsider
From 1830 to 1895 the British and Russian empires schemed and plotted over control of Central and South Asia.
At the heart of the ‘Great Game’ was the United Kingdom’s certainty that the Russians had designs on India. So wars were fought, borders drawn, and generations of young met death in desolate passes and lonely outposts.
In the end, it was all illusion. Russia never planned to challenge British rule in India and the bloody wars settled nothing, although the arbitrary borders and ethnic tensions stoked by colonialism’s strategy of divide and conquer live on today. Thus China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nepal battle over lines drawn long ago in London, while Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul vie for tiny uninhabited islands, remnants of Imperial Japan.