International Cooperation of Space and China

Space science offers a unique opportunity to open dialogue between countries,independently of their political system. In the early 1990s,Dr. Roger-Maurice Bonnet,Director of the Science Program of ESA received a letter from a group of Chinese scientists in response to an invitation,to cooperate on the ESA CLUSTER mission. That event marked the initiation of space cooperation between ESA and China. He is very disappointed about that the partners of the International Space Station(USA,Russia,Europe,Japan,Canada) would not agree on accepting China as one of their partners,and China has to develop its own space station with its own means.