China is technically capable of training foreign astronauts and aims to do so, said an official with the China Astronaut Research and Training Center on Wednesday.

China's two successful manned space missions so far showed the country's technical ability of independently training astronauts and it was one of the center's goals to train international astronauts in future, the center's director Chen Shanguang told Xinhua.

"International cooperation is an inevitable trend in manned space flights, which are large-scale projects with complex technologies and huge investment," said Chen.

China worked together with France and Belgium in several medical programs during the Shenzhou-6 space mission in 2005. It has set up four monitor stations abroad for the country's third manned spacecraft Shenzhou-7, which was scheduled to be launched on Thursday.

During the Shenzhou-6 space mission, joint research with Belgian space medical experts showed Chinese astronauts performed better than foreign astronauts in neural accommodation and stamina in erect posture, said Li Yongzhi, deputy chief designer of the astronaut system.

Chinese taikonauts, or astronauts, started to receive training since 1998. Huang Weifen, deputy chief designer of the astronaut system under China's manned space program, said all the taikonauts were already able to carry out missions in 2003.

It would be a major progress in the country's ability to train astronauts if the crew of the Shenzhou-7 could conduct extravehicular activity (EVA) smoothly, said Chen.

The EVA, known as space walk, would be the first of its kind attempted by Chinese taikonauts.

The China Astronaut Research and Training Center is the third one in the world to carry out independent astronaut training after NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston and Yuri Gagarin Russian State Scientific-Research and Test of Cosmonaut Training.

(Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2008)