ON 7 December, China launched a mission to carry a lander and rover to the surface of the moon. On the eve of the half-centenary of Apollo 11’s moon landing and Neil Armstrong’s famous fluffed line about a small step for a man, the Chinese moonshot , called Chang’e 4, may be an indication of where mastery of space – not to mention Earth – is shifting.

The Apollo missions asserted US dominance at the height of the cold war, which is why Armstrong …