"I agree... Nothing like a little international competition to end complacency.

Though I would think the Chinese schedule is a bit too ambitious to be believable. Just the resources required to keep even a modest manned space station in earth orbit was immense (as was demonstrated with Mir), nevermind a manned lunar station. I think 2050 is more realistic if there is to be a manned station on the moon (assuming that there is some financial incentive to do so). "

How did Mir demonstrate that the resource required for a space station is immense?
I can think of ways that China could with a modest amount of capital build a space station (and make back the money spent on it) and go to the Moon for modest amount and make much more money than it spent on it.
This doesn't mean that I think China would do it the "right way", but at same time, I also wouldn't underestimate their ability.

I think that NASA could go to the Moon to determine if there is minable water at lunar pole. I think NASA could do this for less than 5 billion. I think China could same mission for half the money, it would take NASA to do it.
To set up all infrastructure needed to mine lunar water, would be difficult to estimate. For NASA to do this, it would be pretty hopeless. For one American company to establish the infrastructure for just the mining, processing and shipping water to L-1 and making the water into rocket fuel, it would also be difficult to estimate the costs (depends on size of operation), but as a general ballpark I say "around" 10 billion. The government of China could also do this same thing for around the same cost.
But before you could really get any idea of costs, you would need to know why China is going to the Moon. Just to land a crew there, could cost less than 1 billion. To set-up some place to just stay there for awhile, could also be pretty cheap- less than a billion, and each trip to Moon and back could around 200 million or less.