You have to wonder how many people have noticed the major accomplishments which have been made by China lately. A few years ago one would never think of China as leading the world in communication technology or any section of space technology. We would’ve thought of China as being the producer of cheap electronics and cars which were below standard, much of that has changed. China was known as a country which didn’t have much respect for copyrights or patents. They proved this time and time again by allowing knockoffs of famous products to be produced in their country and then exported to places like the United States. In many big cities in this country one could easily find copies of famous movies for sale on street corners for only a dollar or two, to the dismay of the people who created the original movie who rely on its sale to make their profits.

China had a habit which infuriated certain countries which sold arms to it. The Chinese instead of buying what they needed such as a fleet of the newest Russian fighters, would buy just a few. This allowed them to disassemble the planes, make copies of them and maybe even improve them somewhat. Russia was very disturbed by this eventually and had to think very hard about whether to sell any more sophisticated aircraft to this country. By selling them their best planes they risked not only China copying them, but also China selling their copies to other countries thus cutting into their sales. I can only think the Russians made some of the sales knowing this just to keep the United States on edge. They remembered how their country went bankrupt and are probably hoping we will be next. The truth is somehow we have managed to hold on even though there is not one penny backing up our money.  One of China’s new planes is known as the Chengdu J-20. It is what is known as a fifth generation fighter plane and very advanced. Over the years there has been much espionage conducted by the Chinese and it is known they have managed to steal quite a bit about data on US weapons. It is suspected some of this data was applied to development of this plane, probably along with data they obtained from the Russians.

Recently the Chinese have announced they have been able to control what Einstein called spooky at a distance. He was talking about being able to take two particles, no matter how far away from each other, changing the attributes of one and instantly this would affect the attributes of the other one. This is known as entanglement. It is thought this method would make it impossible for anyone to hack a message thus making it completely secure, but there is more to it than just that. It might prove to be invaluable in communications when spaceships are far away from each other or far from the earth. Instant communication is just a dream right now, because the best we can do is send out a message at the speed of light. This is perfectly suitable on the earth, but far too slow and too unsecure for space communications. I have no way of knowing if we have accomplished this and kept it secret, but I do know the Chinese have accomplished it and were able to do it with over 700 miles of space between the point one particle was altered and the other particle. If we haven’t accomplished this and even if we have, this must be quite worrisome to the US military. No military wants to see any other be able to keep their communications secret.

The Chinese are no slouches in space exploration either and have proven this lately. The United States is talking about the launch of a telescope known as the James Webb Space Telescope. It is supposed to be launched in late 2018. It is said to have a 6.5 meter mirror which is capable of seeing in not only visible light, but also near to mid infrared light. A very big deal has been made about this. China has just launched a telescope which can detect x-rays in space and therefore can be used to find black holes. It is said the telescope is a new breakthrough in physics. Their lead scientists claimed their telescope was far more proficient in detecting x-rays than any other telescope available and it has another feature which is, it cannot be blinded by any x-ray source. It is no accident the Chinese launched this telescope into orbit ahead of the Webb telescope. I believe there is a message here and it is the Chinese are now a force to be reckoned with in space and can lead in technology.

When we talk about the Chinese space projects there are certain things we have to mention. One of those is the Chinese have announced they want to put up their own space station in a few years manned by their own people. They also want to conduct a manned moon landing and to get into space colonization in a big way. They certainly have the money to do these things and since they are a communist country they can just about spend their funds anyway they want to without having to worry about the fact some of their citizens may not be getting the services they need.

There is no doubt China is now one of the leading economies in the world, but like everything else it will probably have a hard time staying that way in the future. I say this because China made their money on cheap labor and now other countries have cheaper labor and automation is spreading throughout the world. It could turn out in the future there will be a leveling off of economies, but for now China is making a big push in every field and India wants to get in the game also and is showing progress in many areas.

The world is changing and it seems like scientific breakthroughs are appearing everywhere, not just in the biggest countries or the richest ones. Acceleration in the development of advanced technology is happening all over the whole planet and one can only wonder what things will be like one hundred years from now. Will those countries who are leading in technology today still be leaders in the future?