The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of space debris and could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong.

In this conversation, the FT’s John Thornhill and MIT Technology Review’s Caiwei Chen consider the battle between Silicon Valley and Beijing for technological supremacy.

It's another two months before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office, but China is already setting boundaries between the two countries. On Saturday, China's leader, Xi Jinping, outlined his "four red lines" in US-China ties at a meeting with US President Joe Biden.