I don't know, I remain unconvinced.

I'm assuming that we are not talking about a tiny little one-room outpost which is capable of sustaining human presence for only a few hours at a time (like the Apollo landings where the only shelter for the astronauts on the surface was the LM, with limited life-sustaining resources), but a true outpost which has both the life-sustaining resources and research capacity to be manned long-term.

The thing with a lunar base is that one has to do the preparatory work first. With the few Apollo and Lunar Surveyor and Prospector missions, we still don't know much about the geology of the moon, which would probably make the construction of a subsurface lunar base dicey. If one goes ahead with it, there would be a need for detailed survey missions ($$$).

Then there is the question of hauling the construction equipment and material to the moon if one wants to actually build on or below the surface ($$$).

Or if one wants to go pre-fab, it would be either multiple launches of small prefabs direct to the moon or build big prefabs in orbit first (same concept as the ISS and probably cost as much).

And of course the $$$ needed to sustain the presence... Somehow I don't think a moon outpost that is manned only a few days out of a year can justify its cost.
That's why I'm kind of skeptical that the Chinese mean to accomplish that by 2015. :-P