A Brief History of Chinese Spaceflight
Nine Years of Cooperation
Part 2
In 1972, with the massive shift in the Soviet Union's space priorities away from their ailing Lunar program and their, not yet launched, series of space stations, the Soviets would find themselves faced with a peculiar conundrum. While they would still be flying their Soyuz spacecraft in space, maintaining manned access, they would have comparatively little to actually do in flight, as no resources were being spared on the program while the new Energia and MKS programs took shape. The Soyuz spacecraft was relatively small, and left little room for the kind of expansive experiments the Soviets still wanted to support, and even for the military, who were far much more utilitarian in their needs than their scientifically focused counterparts, the Soyuz left them wanting for more.
Fortunately, a solution was rather apparent. Beginning in 1967, the Soviet Interkosmos program was a diplomatic counter to the American's own international agreements on spaceflight, and the Soviets knowing that they could not do much to increase the workload and capabilities of the Soyuz, found it prudent to begin floating the idea of greater cooperation amongst participants, with contributions in hardware (assisted by Soviet engineers, of course) and personnel being emphasized and offered up to coax participants in. However, most nations would not bite, and some like North Korea, who were enthusiastic at the prospect, simply didn't have much in the way they could offer up to the program.
This, however, didn't really demoralize the Soviets. In truth, their aims were squarely focused on one nation, one that had not joined in the program at all: China.
In the wake of Joseph Stalin's death and the rise to power of Nikita Khrushchev, China would find the reforms being pushed in the Soviet Union by his regime to be distinctly against the idea of communism that both nations had built themselves up on, and these ideological disputes quickly morphed into diplomatic disputes, creating what became known as the Sino-Soviet Split, which was so impactful that it actually turned the Cold War, often thought as merely the two way, ideological pissing match between the United States and the Soviet Union, into a three way match, with China conflicting with both as it made its attempts at solidifying its own status as a power in its own right. Ironically, while the United States may have found the idea of communism of any kind abhorrent regardless, for China, the Soviet Union their principle contention was that the Soviets weren't communist enough, and over time the perspective had even grown to be that they weren't communist at all anymore, instead infected by what they called "social imperialism", likening the Soviet Union's economic reforms and diplomatic relations to that of their American capitalist enemy.
However, despite the tensions the Sino-Soviet split had imposed on relations between the two nations, cooperation was not impossible. Cooperation was often very easy between the two nations when it came to the various wars that had been waged on the Asian continent throughout the Cold War, such as Korea or Vietnam, and in fact, the pride of China's technological advancement, the Two Bombs and One Satellite program, had had its nuclear components helped by Soviet experts, a relationship that was actually amongst the most positive the two shared during the period.
And this reality is what gave what the Soviet diplomats and SSSR representatives perceived as their so called "in" with China. Courting the Zedong government, the Soviet Union would emphasize the technological alliance the two nations could foster, building on the already established relationships they had built through the nuclear programs. These talks would take two years to be realized as an agreement, with Mao Zedong himself only conceding due to a handful of embarrassing launch failures of China's own Long March rockets, and their Shuguang program getting absolutely nowhere. Meeting in secret in early 1974, Zedong and the Soviet ambassador would meet in Beijing, and China would formally enter the Interkosmos program. Committing to assist the Soviet Union with an unspecified module for their upcoming Salyut space station, as well as providing Chinese launched experiment platforms for Soyuz to rendezvous and eventually dock with, China in turn would receive a handful of dedicated flights aboard Soyuz and, once flying, the MKS orbiters. An impasse would be reached however on technology sharing, as both the Chinese and the Soviets were hesitant in doing so, not only because of the natural implications the process would have to the United States, but also simply because neither side really wanted to share technology at all. It was decided then that this aspect of the two nations cooperation would instead be limited merely to what was necessary to allow their respective spacecraft to interact with one another.
By 1976, China had already launched 5 of these experiment platforms for the Soviet Union. Little more than large chunks of steel to which was attached various experiments from the Soviets or China proper, the platforms were an important boon for the Soyuz program, allowing cosmonauts to conduct EVA's where necessary, developing the much-needed experience needed for the upcoming Salyut, but also allowing for experiments far larger than what the Soyuz could support. Such experiments ranged from simple hardware tests of Salyut components such as solar panels, heat pumps, electronics, propulsion, and other systems, as well as to early experiments with orbital materials manufacturing.
As one can imagine however, China was eager to see its first cosmonaut take flight, having formally adopted the Soviet Union's nomenclature for their space travellers. The original group of selected candidates from Shuguang had been in training already since 1970, and since the formal agreement in 1974 had been working incredibly hard to train for the Soyuz spacecraft, and by all metrics, cosmonaut Tao Shi was pegged as the first Chinese man to fly in space. An experienced military pilot, Tao was officially attached to the Soviet MKS program, but his credentials had Chinese leadership wanting him to be first, as Tao exemplified much of the same qualities that the other great powers had found in their "First Men", and so Tao found himself training for both programs, with his first flight slated for December of 1976.
However, in September, Mao Zedong would pass away from health complications. This would directly lead to a great deal of political upheaval within the following month, with a group of CPC officials known as the "Gang of Four" being ousted from power. The Gang, who were directly responsible for Zedong's Cultural Revolution, which saw terrible purges of those deemed a threat to the nation or the party's power over it, would find their downfall celebrated in the streets of Beijing, as it was seen as an era of political turmoil coming to a long-awaited end. This in turn would directly lead to a new leader for China, Deng Xiaoping. While only a "de facto" leader of China, as he did not actually hold the explicit positions required, Deng's political machinations would work to consolidate power around himself, and throughout his rule he would make a point of reversing many of the policies of the Cultural Revolution, leading to an era of "practical" communism, as opposed to the more idealistic visions of the Mao era.
But what would end up being decidedly not practical for the new regime was the still on-going Sino-Soviet Split, which despite Deng's reforms still left the two nations at odds diplomatically, and already in that early winter of 1976, the strain was starting to be felt on the Interkosmos partnership. Despite this, in December Tao Shi would finally make his space shot, flying alongside Soviet Cosmonaut Ivan Bachurin, who was also primarily intended as an MKS assigned cosmonaut. The experiment platform they would be rendezvousing with was called Zhongli 7, and it was launched by a Long March 2A rocket in November. Onboard, the platform carried a docking mechanism, a miniature greenhouse experiment from the Soviets, a Chinese made computing device, and another Soviet experiment involving crystal growth.
As part of the mission, Tao Shi would not only be the first Chinese man in space, but also the first to walk in it as well, as the mission called for an EVA to retrieve the results of the experiments for return to Earth, This would result in one of the most celebrated photographs in Chinese history, as Bachurin, watching from the open hatch of the Soyuz, would snap a photograph of Tao Shi as he unfurled and release a small Chinese flag he had brought with him. The image of the flag, which had folded on itself to look like it was fluttering in the wind, floating alongside a beaming Tao, with Earth beside him, most certainly deserved its celebration, and it rightfully took its place amongst other famous photographs like Neil Armstrong on the Moon or Bruce McCandless II floating so far away from the Space Shuttle.
However, the relatively innocent flight was not a universal call for celebration. In the United States, it signaled something to the American public that they had not quite felt in a few years, since those tumultuous days of the Cuban Missile Crisis. If China and the Soviet Union were working together, how could the United States allow it to happen?
Naturally, the US was not exactly unaware of the arrangement. While many who were in the intelligence community at the time described the revelations of the agreement, which they became privy too in 1975, as causing almost everyone to soil their pants, cooler heads prevailed as it became known they were not sharing missile technology with each other. And with the incoming Carter administration in 1976 only a month away, many simply felt no need to push it despite public outcry, and indeed, Carter himself would reflect this same assessment. Reasoning that even if they were clandestinely sharing rocket technology, to try and intervene on that issue directly would only worsen the Cold War, if not turn it blazing hot if they were too aggressive in the attempt.
This policy on China would be among many of the factors that plagued Carter's reputation as President, but quite unlike the image that many of his opponents and critics attempted to paint of him, as too soft on communism and unwilling to act, Carter would actually prove be to be quite proactive on the subject, opting instead to use more subtle methods to disrupt the Sino-Soviet relationship. Leveraging Deng Xiaoping's desires for economic reforms in China, the United States would throughout the Carter presidency encourage the opening up of Western interests in China, leading directly to investments and sales from Boeing, Coca-Cola, and others, and in 1979 Carter would formally reocgnize the People's Republic of China, to the sleight of the nationalist government in Taiwan. Deng, visiting the United States a little bit later in the year, would however emphasize that China was still interested in technological development, and would privately note that, Soviets or not, China was not going to reign in its efforts in missile development nor spaceflight. Unable to dissuade him, Carter would simply have to accept the reality, but he would still win out, as the increasingly friendly relationship between China and the United States exacerbated relations with the Soviet Union, and Deng, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, had already begun looking for a way out of their relationship with the Soviet Union.
In the meantime, however, spaceflights with the Soviets would continue relatively unabated into the Salyut era, with Chinese cosmonauts having a secured and permanent two seats on the station's standard 8-man crew, which was guaranteed by the Tongzhi Airlock. The airlock was the direct result of Mao's original agreements to enter the Interkosmos program, and it had been in development from practically the moment Mao could order it so in 1974. While the airlock was relatively simple in comparison to a full-blown spacecraft, the effort put into the airlock was considerable given China's inexperience with manned spaceflight technology and their insistence on the design being purely their own, aside from what was necessary to make it compatible with the Soviet station and the MKS orbiters. Originally, the airlock was to be launched by China themselves and maneuvered and berthed with the station by a native "tug" design, but the intended spacecraft had repeated delays as the Chinese engineers struggled with the design, eventually having to scrap it entirely in favor of having the airlock be carried to the station on the Laika 2 mission, the first manned MKS flight, which it see it christened as the Tongzhi, or "Comrade", airlock after its successful attachment to the station in 1982.
The next year would see continued flights to the station by Chinese cosmonauts aboard Soyuz, while China itself continued focus on its own native programs, with continuing development of its Long March rockets, and indeed, in a seeming premonition, in 1973 China would even begin work on a new attempt at their own manned spacecraft, just as tragedy would strike China.
The loss of cosmonaut Shao Chao in the launch failure of the Soyuz T-48 mission was a massive blow to Sino-Soviet relations, as while the public understandably mourned the tragic loss of Shao, Deng's government had finally received the out it had been looking for, which as morbid as it was, also gave them a way to break off relations in a way that only made them look good. Citing longstanding disputes and the ongoing war in Afghanistan, China would formally withdraw from the Interkosmos program, and in the ensuing investigations, China would demand the return of their airlock, which the Soviets found themselves obligated to oblige, not wanting to worsen relations any more than they had been by the accident. Ending a 9-year period of cooperation, China would quickly collect the Tongzhi module from Baikonur the moment it was landed, and for years to come, not much was heard out of China regarding their space ambitions, as aside from a handful of rocket launches that China felt cause to inform the world of, it kept its intentions close to the chest.
This would all change, however, in 1989, when China would announce that that its Xin Shuguang program, literally New Dawn, had successfully completed its flight tests, and that on the 1st of June, 1989, their famed and celebrated cosmonaut Tao Shi would be flying to space once again. Having missed out on his chance to fly aboard an MKS Orbiter, which was planned to happen in 1984, Tao would instead enjoy the honor of inaugurating a new era of Chinese spaceflight...but also the great sorrow that came with it.
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This post definitely confirms that, if I were to redo the timeline, I would definitely want to cover China from the start so I could be a bit more elaborate on their Interkosmos participation, but unfortunately it was kind of narratively too late as their history became solidified for me, as there just wasn't any really good place to interject them...until now.
