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The Documentary: China's rocket man

Qian Xuesen

27/10/2020 GMT

China's rocket man

BBC World Service - The Documentary, China's rocket man

What does a pioneering scientist's story reveal about China and America?

Qian Xuesen is celebrated as the father of China’s rocket and space programmes, but his role in taking America to the moon has been largely forgotten.

Qian Xuesen is widely celebrated in China as the father of the country’s rocket programme, and the man who kick-started its exploration of space. China is now second only to the US in terms of its dominance among the stars. But Qian also had an important part to play in the early scientific advances, before World War Two,that would eventually take the US to the moon. However, he is almost entirely forgotten by the country that nurtured his talent for decades, before anti-communist persecution sent him back to China, the land of his birth. Kavita Puri traces the rise and fall - and rise again - of an extraordinary life.

This is also a story about national myth-making and geopolitics. Qian’s fortunes and misfortunes mirror Sino-American relations down the decades. And it is about the lies and betrayals that happen when individuals are caught up in the twists of history. There are important questions, too, about whom history remembers and whom it forgets, and whether Qian’s deportation in 1955 was the biggest blunder the US ever made. This is also a tale that does not end with Qian’s death in 2009. At a time when relations between America and China are again at a nadir, his story still has powerful resonances today. 

Presenter: Kavita Puri

(Photo: Qian Xuesen)

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