China’s rocket boom turns Hainan into a space hub. Can launches fuel wider growth?
Factories, supercomputing centres and satellite businesses are springing up in the province as officials push to build a fully fledged aerospace ecosystem
As technological developments augur an era of renewed space exploration, China is aiming to become a major player. In the first part of this two-part series, Wency Chen and Mia Nurmamat examine how Hainan province is betting on a growing aerospace cluster to rewrite its economic playbook beyond tourism.
On Hainan’s northeastern coast, launch towers rise abruptly from a flat landscape of coconut palms and open sky. At Pad 1 of the commercial spaceport in Wenchang, an 83-metre (272 feet) service tower stands surrounded by four slender, steel lattice towers, designed to protect the launch site from lightning during the island’s frequent tropical storms.
No mission is scheduled, but an orange flame flickers from a gas vent at one facility.
Long known for its coconuts, its namesake chicken and generations of emigrants who left for Southeast Asia in search of a living, Wenchang has been thrust onto the frontier of national development. Beijing’s space ambitions have turned the city into a showcase for rocket launches – and given Hainan an unexpected catalyst to reshape an economy long reliant on tourism and consumer services.
