The Chinese rocket industry takes off

Launching the dragonPhotograph: Reuters

Dec 3rd 2025|4 min read

ZHANG CHANGWU and Kang Yonglai are names less familiar in the West than Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. But that may soon change. They are the bosses, respectively, of LandSpace and Space Pioneer, two of China’s leading private space-launch companies. These firms are still a long way behind Mr Musk’s SpaceX and Mr Bezos’s Blue Origin. But when it comes to technological developments in a wide variety of fields, China’s recent history has often felt, to paraphrase Lenin, like one of decades when nothing happens followed by weeks when decades happen.