China's Space Program

China is looking at the ways of getting astronauts to Mars and back safely and potentially establishing a long-term presence on the Red Planet.

That's according to a senior Chinese space industry official speaking Wednesday (June 16) at the Global Space Exploration (GLEX) conference taking place in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Wang Xiaojing, president of the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), told the conference audience via a previously recorded speech that China is researching the best options for sustainable human missions to Mars.
https://www.space.com/china-plans-mars-base-with-astronauts

Barack Obama had the same fool idea.

I'm all for humanity going to Mars when we are ready. But let's establish a long-term Lunar base before we try sending people to Mars.

That way we can learn all the stuff that we don't even realize yet that we need to learn before we send a handful of people out on a mission that is so far away that no help will be forthcoming if something goes wrong.

Humanity needs to learn to walk before we can try running a marathon.

Pretty much every recent President had the same fool idea.

https://www.space.com/11751-nasa-american-presidential-visions-space-exploration/2.html

Some presidents make the next major human spaceflight goal a permanent Lunar outpost, and try to make it a world effort instead of a US-only endeavor.

A Lunar base is likely to have a lot more people on hand, when unexpected trouble arises, than will be on a manned mission to Mars. And that will mean a wider range of specialist expertise on hand to deal with unexpected problems. Plus help from Earth will only be three days away.

China and Russia have made an agreement to build a base on the moon I believe I have read.

He concluded his remarks by calling for global cooperation in the field of deep space exploration.

"We are willing to join hands with our counterparts and partners all over the world, to realize the dream of mankind going to deep space and walking on Mars," he said.
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/china-unveils-ambitious-roadmap-human-mars-exploration/story?id=78463069

"BEIJING, June 24 (Reuters) - China aims to send its first crewed mission to Mars in 2033, with regular follow-up flights to follow, under a long-term plan to build a permanently inhabited base on the Red Planet and extract its resources." https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/china-plans-its-first-crewed-mission-mars-2033-2021-06-24/

Personally, I have doubts that Chinese space technology is not so advanced as they claim. I`ve also read recently that they are going to build a space station on the surface of the Moon together with Russia. That fact doesn`t seem really plausible to me. Moreover, I guess that building a space station on the surface of the Moon can cause some international conflicts on Earth between particular countries. So building a Moon station might be not a good idea