China's success in sending and returning to earth its first spaceman broke the monopoly of Russia and the United States in manned spaceflight, which has greatly encouraged other developing countries, a senior Brazilian official said Friday.
By carrying out its own manned space program, China showed that a developing country can also make achievements in those frontier technological fields, said Roberto Amaral, Brazilian minister of science and technology, who is attending the ongoing 14th Academician Conference of the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).
Amaral highly valued the space technology cooperation between Brazil and China in recent years. The first Earth Resources Satellite jointly developed by the two countries was carried by a Chinese rocket, Long March 4-B, into orbit in October 1999. The satellite was designed to gather terrestrial information on the environment, agriculture and urban planning.
He also revealed that the second Earth Resources Satellite is scheduled to be launched into orbit in the near future, which shows more fruits in the bilateral cooperation in science and technology.
"We are particularly interested in closer cooperation with China in developing space technology," he said. "Chinese scientists have much experience in some areas, which would definitely help us Brazilians."
Multilateral cooperation in space technology has yet to be put onto development agenda of most developing countries. Amaral said he hopes international organizations, such as TWAS, would play a more active role in uniting various developing countries in scientific advancement.
Brazil also welcomes China's participation in its research plans, the minister said.
(Xinhua News Agency October 17, 2003)
