The Chinese Moon landing shows the emerging superpower is a growing threat to Britain and the world, government sources and military experts have said.

On Thursday morning The China National Space Administration confirmed touchdown on the dark side of the Moon – the first time any nation has achieved the feat – and transmitted the first-ever close range image from the surface.

Such a landing is tricky because one side of the Moon always points towards Earth making it impossible to communicate from the ‘dark’ half. The Chinese needed to launch a separate satellite to relay signals back to mission control.

But while Beijing claimed the landing ‘opened a new chapter in human lunar exploration’,…