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number of scientists and conscientious people from developing nations must have somewhat shared in this achievement of monumental global proportions.
On hand to witness the event at the Jiuquan, Malaysian astrophysicist and director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space, Dr Mazlan Othman, who was quite spot on in touting the Chinese space exploration mission as a means of greater involvement of developing countries in space science.
Accolades have flowed in from around the world from elite organisations, scientists and nations signaling China’s firm pole position as a space going nation.
The developing world will clearly seek to tag along and explore how they could share not only in the glory but also in the dividends of the achievements of one of their own.
China has long played the crucial role as, among other first-among-equals traits; developmental role model and bulwark against some of the hegemonic inclinations of powerful nations, vis-à-vis the developing nations.
A sizeable number of developing countries have come to look up to China to advance their economies and this is nowhere more discernible than in the case of the “Look East” policy adopted by African nations.
With China on course to build a space station in 2020, exclusion from the ISS at the behest of US veto power will be receding into history as an example of how the said exclusion fired up China’s determination and ultimately paid dividends for humanity.
Already, suggestions for greater collaboration between China and a number of developed countries are being floated in the wake of Shenzhou 9.
Having cracked the secrets of the cutting space science — definitely sacrificing financially in the process — China must be allowed to enjoy the fruits of its visionary genius and labor. Second in line would be the developing world in view of China’s de facto position as the south-south leader.
Beyond the straightforward potential for China’s space program to reshape and even out the current asymmetrical global geopolitical situation, the program makes loads of sense on the economic continuum.
From a broad viewpoint, it’s incontestable that our world is intricately and eternally linked to outer space making it crucial that humanity expends energy to find out what outer space tells us about the present and future of planet earth.
However the environmental, health, communication and other many other benefits that accrue from space science have long had economic dimensions putting poor economies that can only dream of going to space, out of the loop in these respects.
By conquering space, China will therefore spawn an era when access to space science is more democratised, liberalised and expanded and ultimately made less expensive. Self interest has been evident in the accolades directed towards China’s space science milestones.
If the ISS has for one or another reason malfunctioned after 2020, a short eight years away, the space going nations namely US, Russia, Japan, Canada and the EU, would turn to China for support, thus the current appetite for and rise in ‘collaboration.’
For developing countries however, China provides the opportunity to collaborate at a more basic level. LDC countries such as Haiti, Papua New Guinea or Burundi are wont to ask: Can China, subsidise information on global warming in our countries on the basis of information gathered from Tiangong?
In the recent years, China has launched satellites for Pakistan and Nigeria and is currently collaborating with South Africa and Brazil.
Beijing is home to the Asia Pacific Space Corporation Organisation bringing together Bangladesh, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, Indonesia and Turkey.
China is also collaborating with Kenya in training space scientists at the University of Nairobi in Kenya in the context of an International Ground Satellite project. All indications are that China is remaining true to its leader-among-equals position. 
With the recent commercialisation of space shuttling in the US in the wake of NASA’s strategic and financial challenges, China’s space programme can also help bring ambitious developing nations such especially the BRICS within reach of outer space as an economic sphere.
The South African Space Agency that was created in 2010 is known to have been greatly motivated by China.   
Hopefully any regulations on space exploration in future will not be seen as aimed at curbing China’s rise. — African Executive.