Chaina's emerging role

AP Photo/XinhuaFirst Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei waves after landing on the Inner Mongolian grasslands of northern China, 16 Oct 2003, after 21 hours in orbit

China became a member of an elite club when astronaut Yang Liwei flew into space in 2003. Four years later, Beijing surprised many around the world when it successfully shot down a satellite. China plans to send a robotic rover to the lunar surface in 2012. And next year, the country is launching a small space lab to practice docking in orbit - an essential part of manned missions to the Moon and beyond.

Joan Johnson-Freese of the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island says that even without a manned Moon mission, the U.S. still will be the biggest player in space.

"The United States spends $16 billion or more annually on human space flight. It spends over $20 billion just on unclassified military space programs. China spends about $2 billion annually," said Johnson-Freese.

But she says Beijing's space program has launched China into a new geo-political level. "China is only the third country to have human space flight capabilities [after the United States and Russia]. That inherently projects the image of it being the regional technology leader," said Johnson-Freese.

Historian Jeffery Wassertstrom at the University of California, Irvine, says China is trying to reclaim the powerful status it held hundreds of years ago. "China, after having been one of the world's strongest and most developed countries, went through a period of relative decline and relatively being pushed around by other countries." he said.