And I can't blame them, considering their competition is a communist totalitarian regime with a population of over a billion people, with nuclear weapons and an incipient full-blown manned space program. You can't defeat an enemy (if they turn into one) with numerical superiority if you have a policy outlawing weapons of mass destruction.

Their space war philosophy is wrong too. It isn't the high ground they should control. It is the lower solar orbits, where they can position sunbeam weapon systems, such as Fresnel lenses etc. Control the low ground, and you control the entire solar system.

I personally don't believe China will get any further than the US and Russia already have. It's too much trouble without a supporting infrastructure in space. So unless China tries to exploit high radiant energy orbits around the Sun, there is no point competing, except for public approval and national esteem.