BEIJING — China on Tuesday dismissed suggestions that it is seeking to illegally obtain U.S. space technology after a scientist in the United States was convicted of violating the U.S. arms embargo on China.

The scientist, Quan-Sheng Shu, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Shanghai, pleaded guilty Monday in a district court in Norfolk, Virginia, to selling rocket technology to China and bribing Chinese officials to secure a lucrative contract for his high-tech company.

Qin Gang, a spokesman at China’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters Tuesday that “the allegation that China is stealing outer space technology from the U.S. is being made with ulterior motives, and is in vain.”

Qin did not elaborate.

Prosecutors said Shu, an expert in cryogenics, sold technology to China for the development of hydrogen-propelled rockets. Shu’s attorney said the case had nothing to do with espionage or treason…

“BEIJING — A Chinese astronaut orbiting the earth lifted himself out of the Shenzhou VII spacecraft Saturday afternoon and performed the nation’s first spacewalk, another milestone in China’s space program.

The Chinese astronaut Zhai Zhigang made the nation’s first spacewalk on Saturday, floating outside the Shenzhou VII spacecraft for 18 minutes as it orbited the earth.
Zhai Zhigang pulled himself out of the orbital module about 4:40 p.m. Beijing time, latched himself to a handrail with two safety cords and then waved to a national audience during a live broadcast of the country’s third space mission with an astronaut.

‘I am here greeting the Chinese people and the people of the world,’ Mr. Zhai said, waving to a camera attached to the module…”

A look at how China’s space program isn’t cut from the old space race mold:

“Fifty years after the dawn of the Space Age, China is solidifying its position as only the third nation to launch humans in orbit.

If all goes well, three ‘taikonauts”’will embark Thursday on a three-day Earth-orbit mission, which includes the country’s first spacewalk.

But space is no longer the domain of the US, Russia, or even China. It’s a global affair.

‘It’s not two players any more. In space exploration and Earth observation, you have capabilities around the world. So the question is: How do we move forward’ (together)? says Vincent Sabathier, a former official with the French Space Agency CNES and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington…”

CCTV1’s video of Shenzhou 7’s launch, and a quick glimpse inside mission control.

Taiwan’s CTi TV shows 3D animation of every step of the launch, spacewalk, and return to Earth, plus much more space coverage.

Taiwan’s CTi TV (Cheng T’ien TV) gives a whirlwind wrap-up of pre-launch news, including analysis of articles from South China Morning Post, Agence France-Presse, and the AP, plus some commentary on the ties between tainted milk brand Sanlu and China’s space program.

Mary Kay Magistad looks at China’s long road to space exploration:
“The Cultural Revolution was raging in the late 1960s when the first American walked on the moon. Jia Weixin was then a university student, studying atmospheric physics. But in the Cultural Revolution’s anti-intellectual environment, his classes kept being suspended, scientific advancement retarded, and he didn’t let himself think about the significance of that event…”

China announces an ambitious new space launch:
“BEIJING (AFP) — China’s rulers are looking to catapult overflowing pride and patriotism from the Beijing Olympics into another stratosphere when the nation’s first ‘taikonaut’ walks in space this month.
Amid high inflation and other economic concerns, analysts say China’s space programme offers the communist leadership an important platform to maintain a popularity boost given to them by staging a successful Olympics.
‘China’s space programme reflects the power and legitimacy of the Communist Party,’ Morris Jones, an Australian space analyst and writer who has closely studied China’s space efforts, told AFP.”

A slightly snarky look at prevailing attitudes toward China’s up-and-coming space program:
“Many have dismissed the Chinese human space program as relying on outdated technology borrowed from the Russians, while others have latched onto the young program hoping to galvanize the United States into a 1960s-style space fervor through fear.
Sometimes the idea of a new space race seems exciting. After all, you get all the drama and excitement of the United States spending an extra percent or two of the U.S. Treasury on flashy and intimidating space missions, of everyone rising up to the challenge of beating a common enemy and of the final crushing victory when we land the first woman on the moon.
But don’t get caught up in the hype.”

CCTV 7 shows video of a remote facility where pre-launch tests demonstrate the safety of the Shenzhou 7 spaceship, which will carry the first three-person Chinese crew into space and afford the first opportunity for a spacewalk.