China is spending billions on its space program to become a “major space power” in the next few decades at President Xi Jinping’s insistence, according to Asia correspondent Adrian Brown. “China has come a long way very quickly with its space program, in the last decade alone it’s sent probes to the moon, to Mars, and now it’s in the midst of constructing its first space station,” he told Sky News. Mr Brown said America banning China from the International Space Station shows “Cold War politics on Earth have spread to space”. “In the next 18 months, it’s going to be launching at least ten more rockets in support of that space station.”