<font color="orange">"China has no plans to actually mine materials on the moon, nor is there any currently forseable way it could profit by doing so. However China believes a lunar probe would give it a seat in any international discussions on the future of the moon, advancing it's goal of national prestige, as noted below, and might feel it would have some assurance of a share in the unlikely event that something profitable turns up."</font><br /><br />If China doesn't have any plans after the soil return mission for the moon, China would have little to say in such international discussions.<br />Having a base on the moon (or planning to have one) would give China a much bigger involvement in such international discussions.<br />I see that China is really building up its lunar exploration: first phase orbiting, second phase landing, third phase returning and then stop, just to have a seat at a discussion where the US has the word, because they are actually the only country who has some real plans for the moon?<br /><br /><font color="orange">"It's difficult to see how an unmanned Chinese lunar probe constitutes any competitive threat to the US, but if it does, why has NASA essentially cancelled its own unmanned lunar lander plans on the grounds that such missions are unnecessary to our "real" goal of more manned lunar flights?"</font><br /><br />Because NASA already knows how to shoot a probe around the moon, and how to land on it and to return.<br />China doesn't have this experience and before they can launch people around or on the moon, they must have done this with probes. <br /><br /><font color="orange">"China will have a rover on the Moon. Good for China, but why would that affect decision making in the U.S.? NASA has two live rovers (and one dead one) on Mars. It has a robot orbiting Saturn and another on the way to Pluto. It also has three battery powered cars parked on the Moon that were driven for long distances across the surface by live huma</font>