As the Chinese rejoice over the safe return of Yang Liwei from the country's first manned space flight, not everyone shares our joy.

One can sense a lingering ambivalence behind many of the words of congratulation.

Many are watching with suspicious curiosity where the feat will lead the world's third space-faring nation.

Will Chinese membership in the world's elite space club bring rivalry or partnership? Will China eat its words about the non-militarization of outer space and provoke a new arms race in space?

While some see the voyage bringing the country one step closer to becoming a "great power," a few commentators claim new proof of a "Red Menace." To them, the Shenzhou V has sounded a louder alarm that the military potentials of China's space programme would turn the country into a true bully.

An expensive space programme would have been out of the question without the necessary financial and material support. The nation's dream of space flight had long remained a fairy tale and at best on paper because of a lack of resources.

Our newly-gained space capabilities are evidence of the nation's unprecedented strength, both technologically and economically.

Nothing, however, should blind us from the reality that dozens of millions of our fellow countrymen are still struggling to make ends meet below an already very low subsistence line.

Aside from eye-pleasing gross domestic product figures, we are yet to get rid of such problems as mass lay-offs, a clumsy State sector and a fragile financial industry, as well as largely under-developed rural communities.

No matter how far our spacecraft can reach, it cannot escape the heavy drag of poverty and regional imbalances. Our identity as a developing country will not change, at least in the near future.

Even if the country does attain the position as a world power some day, China has little chance of becoming a bully.

The Chinese space authorities have announced their goal of building a space station after Shenzhou V's debut flight. The statement was accompanied by a call for international collaboration in the peaceful exploration of outer space.

The non-aggressive nature of the Chinese should not be hard to understand given the country's defensive military strategies through the centuries.

Deep beneath the nation's contemporary strategic thinking lies late Chairman Mao Zedong's instruction that "we shall not offend until we are offended."

Almost all current Chinese foreign policies have their roots in that mentality.

Both Mao's teaching and the country's long-standing position on international affairs derive from the nation's historical appreciation of harmony.

It might help to remember that gunpowder, a Chinese invention that had existed largely for the appreciation of the beauty of fireworks, had not become a means to kill on this territory until numerous Chinese lives were lost in the gunfire of Western invaders.

(China Daily October 17, 2003)