The Chinese claim to have successfully launched their new manned capsule (without anyone in it, this time).

They do seem to be on track to developing their own independent crewed space capability, with the medium-term goal of sending Taikonauts (their word for astronauts) to the Moon. I hope that they do, because they’ll likely succeed, which may spur us to get off our butts here, and the way they’re going about it (using expendable rockets) will be easy to compete with if we ever harness free enterprise to the problem. Their program is basically a knock off of the Soviets.