China lands on Moon "Jade Rabbit", a feat by all means

China's lunar landing is without doubt a major technological triumph, a real achievement, but has it managed to fire the imaginations of ordinary Chinese?

The Chang'e 3 lunar lander descended to the surface of the Moon in the middle of peak television viewing time, a little after nine o'clock on Saturday evening, amid a fanfare of coverage on CCTV, China's national broadcaster.

CCTV reaches almost all this country's 1.4 billion people. There were fancy computer graphics, and animations, of the probe descending to the surface. The animations at least showed a perfect touch-down.

And the achievement of course is undimmed. For China the mission is valuable in many ways.

It's a demonstration, to China's own people and the rest of the world, of how far this country has developed, of its scientific and technological prowess, of its ability to mobilise human and financial resources.

The mission will spur the development of communications and other technologies. There may be military and civilian spin-offs.

And above all of course, for a Communist Party's leaders the science is less important than the symbolism of a rising China, reaching for the Moon.

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