CMV: The first astronaut to set foot on Mars should be Chinese.

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea notwithstanding, China has been very careful to abide by international law in its pursuit of local Hegemony. The reason for this is pretty simple: the Chinese value a good face, and China's leaders want to make a good impression with regards to their push for Chinese primacy. After all, China has a first-strike nuclear capability. A more aggressive China would have already invaded Taiwan.<br><br>So, how do you expand a nation's borders as a rational actor, without causing a global panic? The simple answer is you expand into a borderless space by colonizing the high seas, by colonizing space, by colonizing the polar regions, and by colonizing virtual borders by building a strong, global cyber-empire.<br><br>Victor Hugo said that China's borders stopped at the stratosphere. The idea is that while there are laws that govern human activity in low-Earth orbit, beyond that there is no law: the oceanic frontier as it stands now is orbital.<br><br>Furthermore, technology from space exploration (and space exploitation) will inevitably spill over to shitty, crappy things down on Earth. Which means that China and Chinese clients will have access to the next revolutionary leap in global technology: space-based solar power, asteroid mining, orbital manufacture, advanced quantum computing.<br><br>If the next leap in technology comes from space, by being first to send an astronaut to Mars, China will be at the forefront of the next technological revolution.<br><br>Hence, the first astronaut to set foot on Mars should be Chinese.