Workers demonstrate outside the factory of Hua Yang Printing Holdings Co Ltd on October 30, 2007 in Shenzhen of Guangdong Province, China. Over 1,000 workers of the company have blocked the 107 State Highway where the firm is located, to protest against their employer, who owed half a month's salary to the workers. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

A police officer wearing a protective mask walks past the portrait of late communist leader Mao Zedong (not pictured) at Tiananmen Gate in Beijing on January 23, 2020. Large-scale Lunar New Year events in Beijing have been cancelled as part of national efforts to control the spread of a new SARS-like virus, city authorities announced on January 23. (Photo by Nicolas Asfouri/AFP Photo)

Relatives of a missing person scuffle with police officers on the bank of the Yangtze River, near Jingjiang, Jiangsu province January 17, 2015. A search and rescue operation was still underway after the boat capsized on January 15, leaving 22 people missing, including foreigners. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

China has sent its first woman into space on a mission to dock with an orbiting station, the latest step in an ambitious programme to go to the moon and on to Mars.

Photo: China's first female astronaut Liu Yang, waves during a sending off ceremony before she departs for the Shenzhou 9 spacecraft rocket launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, China, Saturday, June 16, 2012. China will send its first woman and two other astronauts into space Saturday to work on a temporary space station for about a week, in a key step toward becoming only the third nation to set up a permanent base in orbit. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

The Lotus Exhibition Center is an icon for the city of Wujin. Conceived as an addition to an existing underground building with a lake top, the center is a sculptural and ethereal lotus flower displaying the three stages of the lotus bloom life.

A man walks past specially designed wash basins in a public toilet at the Foreigners Street on April 26, 2007 in Chongqing Municipality, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

A general view of the landslide-hit Miancu Village on July 3, 2011 in Maixian County, Sichuan Province of China. Eight people are still missing after a dormitory building of a chemical plant was hit by a rain-triggered mudslide in Maoxian County on Sunday morning. Rescue efforts are underway. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

A vendor smokes behind a display of dog meat at a dog meat market on the day of a local dog meat festival in Yulin, Guangxi Autonomous Region, June 22, 2015. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)