Chinese Astronaut floats cooperation with NASA...

via CNN

China wants greater cooperation with other nations in space, particularly the United States, the country's most experienced astronaut has told CNN in an exclusive interview.
Fifteen nations including the United States, Russia and Japan cooperate on International Space Station missions, but China's involvement has always been a non-starter because of longstanding resistance from U.S. legislators.
"As an astronaut, I have a strong desire to fly with astronauts from other countries. I also look forward to going to the International Space Station," Commander Nie Haisheng told CNN.

This is the first whiff I've gotten from the Chinese that they feel behind the curve in a technology issue.

Make no mistake about it.  A Chinese Astronaut would not make such a statement without approval from leadership.

They're behind and they know it.

Awesome.

Funny though.  The ISS is Space Shuttle era tech.  NASA for all their warts (and boy they have a bunch of them...I'm still chafing at the former Marine, Director of NASA's talk of Muslim outreach being one of their missions) the idea to abandon the dream of a shuttle and return to a capsule configuration for space travel seems to have been spot on.  Additionally the boost given by commercial space corporations is doing the good work of pushing the govt --- and by doing so is aiding in the revitalisation of space exploration in the US.

Long story short?  Looks like US legislators finally got something right.  Keep China out of our space program.