Excuse me ... China has catch up (or at least narrowing gap) with US the pioneer of the space technology, you call it "slow" ?
It is US that move so slow that can be catched up by China.
US was the first starting space exploration
far earlier than China,
LOL! How are we slow compared to China?
Far earlier? We only started launching satellites 12 years before China.
Since then:
We have sent probes to EVERY planet (some are still working like the Jupiter one).
A probe orbiting around the Sun.
A probe is on its way back from collecting samples from an asteroid.
Probes outside the solar system.
We have had 12 men walk on the moon, with some of them driving on it. They brought back 383 Kilograms of moon samples.
We sent a 75+ ton space station into orbit
with a single launch.
We helped build a second Space Station.
We have had people continuously in orbit in the ISS since November of 2000...
that's over 20 years.
We have had 5 spaceship designs (including an 8 person capacity space plane) send over 500 people into orbit.
We have reusable rockets.
We have the most powerful active rocket in the world.
We have two day/night nuclear powered rovers driving on Mars right now AND a helicopter.
Mars isn't the only place we have concentrated resources.