As thrilling as it is to see a man of your own ethnicity soar into space, there should also be something disturbing about watching a nation spend billions of yuan on such projects when it is strapped for resources to support the world's largest population.

I do not doubt that national pride can indeed boost a nation's will and, thereby, its production. But while Colonel Yang is being placed on a pedestal, let us not forget the hundreds of millions being hidden from the world to avoid the appearance that China is not hot on the heels of the United States.

The truth is that China is not just a few paces behind, it is more like a few extraterrestrial orbits away. China's space programme itself is an obvious indicator of the enormous gap. After all, the Americans sent a man into orbit 41 years ago - and they were not even the first.

But the greatest indicator of how far China has to go is about as far removed from the Shenzhou V mission as you can get. It is in the deserts of China. In the mountain ranges. On the dried-up farmlands. In the urban ghettos and the rural slums. It is no secret that there are a lot of poor people in China. We just forget, in such glorious times, that the huge, poverty-stricken population needs as much help as Colonel Yang needed to get off the ground safely.

No, sorry, the population needs about 1.5 billion times more help than he did.

Even though it feels very satisfying to see the Chinese (and United Nations) flag waved in space, we must question the practicality of the Shenzhou V mission. We need to ask why the money that went into the mission was not used to compensate those whose homes have been submerged by the Three Gorges Dam. Why the massive amount of fuel that launched the Long March rocket high into the sky was not pumped into rural hospital generators. Why the kind of effort made to keep the launch a secret is not utilised to make China's Aids epidemic an open, public issue.

We need to go right down to the last detail, to ask why money was spent preparing a cheesy translation for the China Daily of what Colonel Yang's wife said: 'So proud of you, hubby' - instead of providing a schoolbook for a child in Inner Mongolia.

After all, any scientific gains from the Chinese space programme will have all been made before by the Americans and Russians in their four-decade long history of space exploration.

If and when China reaches the moon, develops a reusable spacecraft that can land on a runway, or sends robots to Mars, it will all have been done before. We all benefit from American space intelligence; why should China bear such a heavy burden when it can essentially get the same information from the US for free?

That way, while Nasa spends all its time, effort and money trying to find out what went wrong in the Columbia shuttle disaster, China can work on catching up with the first world in areas where progress means real, tangible improvements.

China needs higher-quality and more comprehensive education, as well as the gradual implementation of a welfare state, not simply pride over scientific successes that have been achieved decades ago. Let America carry the world's weight of the final frontier on its own, while the developing world focuses on developing, not pretending to be developed.

If China wants to catch up with the US, it should realise that Washington did not become the world's capital because it sent a man into space. The Americans conquered and solidified their own frontiers before venturing out into the universe.

The Chinese need to do the same. It is necessary to build a sturdy house before you can walk out of the door.

Keane Shum is social chairman of the Hong Kong Club at Yale University