[quote=@Pepperm1nts]
That's not the damn point though. The point is that somehow the Chinese have the technological know-how to go to space, but Europeans don't have the know-how to make goddamn jets, all because a few scientists died and they had to fight a war for a few extra years. But backward-ass China's just fine.

You're talking resources when I'm talking know-how.
[/quote]

China and Asia has had a long history of rocketry. The Chinese were the first to develop rockets which were later introduced to Europe by the Mongols, who used them to shoot shit with; likewise in China. The concept bumped around Europe and the Middle east because of them, but they knew about rockets through China, and the Chinese have been using rockets in some way for a thousand years by this RP's point.

There were additional uses of more advanced rockets in Asia/South-Asia. Mysore in India was the first to use iron-cast rockets against the invading British forces. So the Indian subcontinent as well had a grasp and understanding of rocketry. So much so it took the British by surprise when iron-cylinder explosives smashed them from the hurka-dirka, chicken-tika eaters.

Another factor that would come into it is a diaspora of Russian intellectuals who fled to western China to get out of the reach of the Tzar. The Russians made some significant theoretical contributions to rocket technology in the early 20th century. Some - or many - of these university intellectuals may have no doubt been critical of the Czar and desired Republican reform, or Communist reform. Then had to get the hell out before they were exiled to Siberia or locked up or shot. Western China has been the sort of under-policed area of China for a while and would make for a target of interest, and what I use to explain the migration of Communism from Russia to China.