BEIJING- China will complete the second step of its three-phase development strategy for its manned space program by establishing its own space lab around 2016, a spokeswoman for China's manned space program said Thursday.

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Spokeswoman Wu Ping made the remarks at a press conference here after the country's unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 and the space lab module Tiangong-1 successfully docked with each other at 1:36 am Thursday.

China will establish a manned space station around 2020, Wu said.

China's spacecraft will conduct two more space docking missions in 2012. After that, the nation will begin to build a space lab and space station.

China's unmanned spacecraft Shenzhou-8 and its space lab module Tiangong-1 rendezvoused early Thursday, successfully completing the country's first-ever space docking.

Through more than 10 years of efforts, China has made breakthroughs in key technologies and formed a set of design, production and experiment systems for the spacecraft's space docking, Wu said.