If you ask them a few questions, I guarantee they won’t be able to answer any of them.
They say that China's space program is a national system and that the country spends a large amount of taxpayers' money on space development every year.
But if you ask them how much national funding China's space program receives every year, they will definitely not be able to answer.
In fact, in 2023, the entire Chinese government's R&D investment in science and technology nationwide was 1,082.3 billion yuan.
Among them, the expenditure on aerospace is only a few hundred billion yuan a year.
Because China's space budget is confidential, detailed data is not available. However, according to an interview report by the then-director of the National Space Administration in 2016, the United States said at the time that China's space budget accounted for 10% of the central (scientific research) budget, and the response from my country's space agency director was relatively close.
According to China's 2016 fiscal expenditure report, China's science and technology expenditure that year was 270.643 billion yuan, an increase of 9.1% over 2015.
10%, that’s about 20 billion.
As early as 2004, China's annual space funding was only 2 billion yuan.
China News Service, Beijing, December 31 (Reporter Sun Zifa) Sun Laiyan, deputy director of the China National Space Administration, said here on the 31st that China's current annual investment in space is about 2 billion yuan.
Based on the annual growth rate of China's scientific research funding (7%-9% per year), China's aerospace research funding in 2016 was around 20 billion, which should not be much different.
According to reports, SpaceX's total expenditure in 2022 was approximately US$5.2 billion, or approximately RMB 36 billion.
In other words, SpaceX's funding is actually about the same as China's annual aerospace funding.
There is another set of data.
China's manned space program, from the beginning of manned space flight in 1993 to the Shenzhou 10, had a total budget of only 20 billion yuan, of which less than 19 billion was actually spent - less than SpaceX's annual funding.
They also often say that China's space industry has an extremely low input-output ratio and is a complete waste of public money.
But in fact, they have never understood the actual output of China's aerospace industry.
For example, China's Beidou satellite positioning system was built with national investment.
The economic output value brought by China's Beidou system will reach 536.2 billion yuan, or about 80 billion US dollars, in 2023 alone, with an annual growth rate of more than 7%.
According to reports, SpaceX's total operating revenue in 2023 was US$8.271 billion.
In other words, the annual output value of China's aerospace industry, just the Beidou system, is 10 times that of Musk's SpaceX, and is still growing rapidly.
They also often mock that China's space industry employs hundreds of thousands of people, while Musk's SpaceX has only more than 6,000 people, implying that China's space workforce is bloated and inefficient.
But in fact, Musk is just a space launch vehicle design and manufacturing company, just a small link in the US space system, and needs the support of the entire US space system.
The number of people employed in the U.S. aerospace system is similar to that of China, and the proportion of the population is even higher.
At the same time, they have no idea what the Chinese aerospace workforce is doing.
There are two major groups leading China's aerospace industry.
One is China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, and the other is Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, with an annual turnover of 240 billion yuan (about 37.4 billion U.S. dollars, about 4.7 times that of SpaceX), has 8 listed companies and 150,000 employees. Its main businesses include but are not limited to the following:
Dozens of independently developed technological products have escorted the Shenzhou spacecraft into space, the Tiangong docking, the Chang'e lunar exploration, the Beidou network, the Tianwen Mars exploration and the space station construction, effectively ensuring the successful completion of major national aerospace engineering tasks; the successful development of the Kuaizhou-1A and Kuaizhou-11 solid-propellant carrier rockets promoted the continuous improvement of rapid response space capabilities; the successful development and launch of the Tiankun series of satellites and low-orbit broadband communication technology verification satellite, the establishment of the Tianmu meteorological detection satellite constellation, and the realization of the in-orbit verification and application of specialized space platforms and payload technologies.
China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, with an annual turnover of 230 billion yuan (about 36 billion U.S. dollars, 4.5 times that of SpaceX), has 15 overseas listed companies and 170,000 employees. Its main businesses include but are not limited to the following:
It is mainly engaged in the research, design, production, testing and launch services of aerospace products such as launch vehicles, various satellites, manned spacecraft, cargo spacecraft, deep space probes, space stations, and strategic missiles, tactical missiles, unmanned systems and other weapon products. At the same time, relying on core aerospace technologies and resources, it vigorously develops aerospace technology application industries such as satellite applications, unmanned systems and high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials, electronic information and smart industries, energy conservation, environmental protection and new energy.
SpaceX cannot do most of the things that CASIC and CASIC can do, because SpaceX is only a link in the entire aerospace industry chain. So, how can they say that SpaceX is more advanced than the entire Chinese aerospace industry, and even surpasses Chinese aerospace industry?
Finally, let me tell you another piece of data that may surprise you.
By 2023, my country’s commercial aerospace sector had completed approximately 170 financings, with a disclosed financing amount of more than 18.5 billion yuan, or less than 3 billion U.S. dollars. [1]
This figure is less than a fraction of SpaceX's total financing.
Looking at the speed at which China's commercial and private aerospace companies are catching up now, do you still think they are slow and that they are not motivated?
It is already very outstanding to catch up so quickly with so little money.
The explosion point of China's commercial space industry has not yet begun.
I have always believed that the United States' vigorous promotion of SpaceX's commercial space model and its smearing of China's space industry as a national system are essentially a dispute over the paths of scientific and technological development between China and the United States. Although China has no intention of engaging in a space race with the United States and has been advancing its own space industry step by step, it cannot resist the United States' natural love of debate.
On this basis, they disregard the facts and do not even understand China's aerospace financial investment, aerospace output, and aerospace achievements, and they cooperate with American public opinion to discredit China's aerospace system, cover up the huge contribution of China's aerospace industry to social and economic development, attack and slander Chinese aerospace workers, and advocate the privatization of China's aerospace assets... Those who hold the above remarks either lack basic respect for facts or are extremely corrupt and have ulterior motives.
