The successful launch of the Shenzhou XII spacecraft on Thursday morning and its docking with Tianhe, the core module of China"s space station, hours later marked a major milestone in the country"s space exploration program.

The Shenzhou XII, China"s seventh manned space mission, carried a crew of three astronauts, the first visitors to the core module of the space station, who will spend the next three months there.

The successful space mission signifies China"s hard work and self-reliance in space technology. The painstaking journey on way to achieving this success is similar to China"s journey of realizing its first "Centenary Goal" of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. But our focus should not be confined to the three astronauts, but should also laud the hard work and dedication of the many backup astronauts and the large group of scientists and engineers who made this mission a grand success.

But, as was expected, China"s space exploration has sparked concerns among some Western media, who claim China could poses a security threat to other countries, because its scientific achievements could be used for military purposes.