Roscosmos: 13 countries, including Belarus, will join Russia and China in work over lunar station
Roscosmos: 13 countries, including Belarus, will join Russia and China in work over lunar station

SB news

Roscosmos: 13 countries, including Belarus, will join Russia and China in work over lunar station
SB news
I’m wondering if this means a space station in lunar orbit or an actual base on the surface of the moon?
It is surface yes. The CPC has added this to their official list of upcoming projects. They will soon be launching Chang'e missions to scout out locations and water ice resources on the surface. Aswell as sending up a system that can 3-d print building material from lunar soil.
Humanity will have its first permanent surface settlement on another body in our lifetimes, and itll be built and manned by communists. I cant wait to watch the western liberals seethe.
This gives me a lot of optimism. When the CPC officially adopts it as policy that's about the safest bet you can get that it's actually going to happen. If it was just Russia saying it i would be skeptical. The Russian Federation can be a bit fickle and prone to changing their minds on projects like this, yet another unfortunate result of a profit-driven capitalist system. But when China says it's going to do something, they are serious.
Yes this is a Chinese led project for sure they are just inviting other nations to join them in doing it since the Chinese are very much in favor of international cooperation and unity.
This has been in the works for a while. Technically if NASA had the budget of the us military then a moon base would already existed.
Hell even island three orbital colonies have been feasible since the 80s (technology wise)
From what I read, the goal is to build an actual moon base.
It's gotta be a surface station. there's not much utility in a manned station orbiting the moon at this point and it's redundant to tiangong from a developmental perspective.
a surface base is a major effort & it makes sense to approach it as a collaborative project similar to how ISS was carried out.
EDIT: plus China is already working toward a surface base. I know of no plans for orbiters beyond unmanned satellites.