Prescient, as ever

The Associated Press has an article by Wong Wai-Bor about the Russians helping the Chinese in space:

Russian technicians will help direct China's first-ever spacewalk this week, setting the stage for expanded cooperation between the sides, a spokesman for China's space program said Wednesday.
Two Chinese astronauts aboard the Shenzhou 7 spacecraft will don spacesuits for the maneuver, one of them a Russian-made Orlan model, Wang Zhaoyao told reporters at the Jiuquan launch site in northwestern China.
The two will be "supported by Russian experts throughout the mission," Wang said.
The three-man mission, expected to last about three days, is China's most ambitious since it launched its first man into space in 2003. The spacewalk, known formally as an extravehicular activity or EVA, is expected to help China develop the technology for docking two orbiters to create China's first space station in the future.
China says its secretive military-backed space program has relied overwhelmingly on domestic technology and know-how, and cooperation with Russia has been highly limited. Some Chinese astronauts, sometimes called "taikonauts" for the Chinese word for space, are believed to have trained in Russia early on, but all now undergo preparations in facilities in China.
"The successful cooperation on the Shenzhou 7 manned mission will create favorable conditions for future cooperation between our two countries," Wang said, without giving details.

Rico says it's all been covered in The Third Seat, his father's novel on the subject: