Circling back to space, this is a fundamental reason why China will struggle to make advances in space once the easy gains have been achieved. Creativity and innovation require a free, liberal and open society to thrive.
These are the priciples which have propelled America's advances in science as they are principles which attract the brightest from around the world.
Very few of the brightest in the world would be willing to sacrifice that freedom to work in China.
Are they struggling? Because it seems to me that they are catching up rather quickly.
> Creativity and innovation require a free, liberal and open society to thrive.
This is propaganda we are told over and over again and yet if we bother to think about it for a moment would realize it's a lie.
Human civilizations ( greeks, indian, egyptian, chinese, etc ) were never "free, liberal and open".
Modern science was built up by european and american societies built upon colonization, slavery and genocide.
The greatest leap in american innovation/science/etc happened while we were not free ( slavery/jim crow), illiberal and closed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
> Very few of the brightest in the world would be willing to sacrifice that freedom to work in China.
What freedom? The best and brightest go where the money and opportunities are. And considering china has over a billion people, they don't have to look elsewhere to attract the best and the brightest since they have so many in house.
China did a manned mission to low-earth orbit in 2003. 17 years later China hasn't done much on the manned exploration front. Long March 9 isn't expected to even be ready for a manned Lunar mission until the 2030s.
America launched Alan Shepard in 1961 and 8 years later Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
That said, I think there's no reason why China needs to struggle to make advances in space because copying the innovation of other places works very well.
We supported Chaing Kai-shek. He lost, retreating to Taiwan.
It seems that many Americans are not aware of the propaganda they are being exposed to. The world is not black and white. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
It was the KMT who kicked the foreigners (the Japanese) out of China with the help of the allies (Soviets and the US) declaring war on the Japanese mainland.
Lots of interesting stuff I bumped into, though. It did seem that the KMT made some pretty big mistakes, such as disbanding more of their army then they should have after the Japanese were defeated, mismanaging the economy causing hyperinflation, and being very corrupt. Also I had no idea that the KMT backed muslim insurgents on mainland China in the 1950s.
Given all of that Mao's popularity makes enough sense. There's also a lot of curb appeal in a successful peasant/worker revolution.
Despite being the greatest mass murderer of the 20th century (through the disastrous Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward), Mao is still a revered figure in China and is considered the father of the nation.
His face is even on the currency like the Queen of England is in Commonwealth countries.
The government of China censors have re-invented his reputation over there. You'll see the propaganda line that "Mao was 70 percent right and 30 percent wrong" deeply embedded in the psyche of people.
Rewriting history is the power of China's censorship system and media control. It's a pretty scary thing actually.