China deploys world's first three-satellite constellation on distant retrograde orbit

That's an unfair comparison. The Apollo astronauts also practiced their golf swing and did donuts in a dune buggy!

Exactly, it looks like China has a serious plan to actually build a crewed base on the Moon and this could become an outpost for further exploration of the solar system. The Moon also makes far more sense for a colony than Mars in my opinion. It's much easier to get to, which means that if anything goes wrong it's actually possible to send help. There's no atmosphere or dust storms to worry about. While there is superfine dust on the surface, you could just build the colony underground. In fact, it's speculated that you could find existing lava tubes to pressurize which could save a huge amount of time. There's really nothing humans would need to do on the surface.

If China is able to start industry on the moon and produce things on site that would be a complete game changer. Launching things from the Moon is far cheaper than doing it from Earth, and you could even build a space elevator there with current tech. At that point you can effectively send unlimited amount of stuff into orbit without even needing rockets. You could build stuff like giant space habitats, and ships that just stay in orbit, the possibilities are endless.