The Chinese come to the rescue of NASA and the movie literally concludes with one of the American heroes fist-bumping a Chinese astronaut on a joint mission back to Mars. It's a sad reminder of how bad the new cold war has become in just a few years.
2015: :wholesome: We can explore space together! :solidarity:
2022: President Xi is going to invade Taiwan at any moment LAUNCH THE NUKES NOW! :guts-rage:
:sadness:
There's also the fact that the movie was based on a rather successful novel, and China saving the day is what happens in the novel. Not that this would stop Hollywood from transforming it into another piece imperialist propaganda, but the contrast would make it stand out as such. US propagandists work best when they get to write the script. If the story is already written and already known to the public, they'd rather avoid it than make it obvious what they're doing. Narrative changes between prose and motion picture tend to be something people fixate on, even when there's no ulterior motive at play.
No it’s not.
China space plays a role in that they willingly scuttle their planned launch to help NASA as they have a rocket ready.
NASA actually refuses the mission due to the risk of the space ship and the crew. The astronauts and some ground control basically YOLO it so NASA has to help.
The book is clearly about the risks we should perform to rescue those in need instead of shrugging and letting people just.. die.