There's a long and sordid history of wildly contradictory pronouncements coming from various individuals within the Chinese program. So until I hear something truly official, I'll remain fairly skeptical. The only official thing that I've heard recently is that the schedule for their lunar orbiter has been moved up by a year, to 2006. This would seem to indicate an increasing interest in the moon, rather than the other way around.

My hunch is that this is either:

A.) The wishful thinking of someone in their Space Station Department, as opposed to their Lunar Landing Department.

B.) An attempt to de-escalate the space race which is all but declared by Bush's MMB initiative. Possibly a red herring.

C.) A genuine change of focus, which will change again when the American space boom begins to make the Chinese program look insignificant. They'll need to one-up us then, and the moon will be the easiest way for them to do it.

Cheers,

Nathan.