A short 8 years ago, Chinese space exploration was extremely backward and uninformed of current activities. The only thing those engineers knew was sending men into low earth orbit. Yes, they were engineers that controlled Chinese space program. They knew nothing about science. The science they knew was 太空育种，哈哈, 让人笑掉大牙！ They knew nothing (at least, pretend to know nothing) about the robotic explorations.
However, in the last decade, scientists slowly gained a voice in how to spend research money. For example, 嫦娥 program is an example: it costs MUCH less than the useless Shengzhou spaceship, but produced vastly greater scientific results!
Not all space explorations need to be in space. Ground based telescopes are extremely important, and China does not have good telescopes. Again, scientists got hold of some money, and recently contructed a 4-m telescope (the previous size was a little over 2 meters, and there are only 2 of them in China). China has less than 10 telescopes at 1 meter and up (1 4-meter telescope, 2 2-m telescope, and a few 1 meter telescopes).
China is also building an observatory in Antarctica, on Dome A to be precise. In fact, right now, there is a team there to service the observatory there. Antarctica is the best observation site on Earth, and a lot easier to get to than space.
China is also collaborating internationally. For example, China is a 10% partner in building a 30-m telescope. It will cost 1 billion dollars. If China did not waste the money on Shenzhou, China could have contributed sufficient money so that this telescope could be build now (contribute more will result more telescope time).
In summary, with scientists beginning to gain control of the space money, useful science is showing up.
