Comment by rzerowan

Theresa though i read somewhere that i tend to agree with - with the level of tech and space experience that China currently is capable of , they could possibly launch a return mission as early as next year(if they so chose).

However they have their own timetable and milestones , hence going to the moon has already been earmarked with followup misson for a lunar base and further missions already penned in. So less of a race if one party is just doing their own thing.

We see the same dynamic viz Taiwan , western commentariat seeks to impose deadlines and spin rationales when they never materialise. Or the AI race where China keeps churning out OSS models while American labs are in a sel declared 'race' for supremacy.