About 10 years ago, Chinese space program was several decades behind. What they had in mind was sending a man into space, and their concept of research is "太空育种", which was extremely embarrassing. Back then, I have chatted with people working in the Chinese space program, and they have never heard of recent explorations to Mars.
The Chang'e program was equally useless in science. These programs were run by engineers, and their concept of science is either "太空育种" or repeating what others did 40 years ago. By the summer of 2014, no paper was published the Chang'e main program, with the following exception:
Astronomers in China begged those in charge of the Chang'e program: after Chang'e rocket finished its lunar program, they used what is considered "useless" and send it to photograph Asteroid 4179, with great scientific results!
This produced a powershift in the Chinese space program. The old engineers are losing control over the direction of the Chinese space program (well, it did not have a direction to begin with), and the Chinese astronomers are taking over (which should be the case from the start). There will be one more Chang'e to go (well, it is partially built already), and in the future, space programs will be more scientifically directed.
Examples:
1. FAST. This will be the largest single radio telescope. Before getting too excited, this will NOT be the largest radio telescope. The square kilometer array will be the largest (FAST has a surface area of only about 0.2 square kilometers). And unfortunately, FAST was not able to join in as the square kilometer array due to some kind of technical issues which was not explained to me clearly.
2. TMT. This will be a 30-meter diameter optical telescope. It is a collaboration of 5 countries (and more may join in). This will be the 2nd largest optical telescope. Three such super large optical telescopes will be built, all with international collaborations.
3. 紫金山天文台主持正在研制一颗X光望远镜。这个将是中国发射的第一颗科学望远镜，把中国space program从“太空育种”中解放出来。
4. 地面望远镜。中国以前把钱都用到“太空育种”这种伪科学上去了，天文学家一直没有多少钱建望远镜。最大的 general purpose 望远镜才2米多（一共只有2台）。泰国这样的小国就有1台。1米以上的也只有10台左右。现在风向转了，中国科学家慢慢地把钱从“太空育种” 的那帮人手中抢过来了，可以预言，在以后的10年里，会建更多的地面望远镜（最近中国科大就建了2台1米的望远镜）。
