If you think Mars is inhospitable and that China should focus on Mercury and Mars - well, I have to tell you, Mercury and Venus are even more inhospitable. Mercury is too near the sun, has virtually no atmosphere and has a day side temperature of 800 degree Fahrenheit. Venus is enveloped by an atmosphere of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and is even hotter than Mercury, as hot as 880 degree Fahrenheit ! Both planets have surface temperature much higher than the melting point of lead (621 degree Fahrenheit).
I know Mars is very challenging for human exploration relative to the Moon but that's where your space technologies will improve by leaps and bounds in overcoming the hard challenges.
sigh... Mercury and Venus are hot at the surface at the equator (or for Venus, the whole surface). OK. Sure. Could there possibly be regions that are not hot?
Especially because the highest temperatures near the poles is just 400 F (220 C) in the open, -100 C in the shade, which is far better than -80 C globally?
OK, let's review.
On Mercury, here is how you moderate temperature, produce energy and produce chemicals with existing tech:
1. Dig a hole at the edge of the shade of a small 50 m hill at the poles (where temperatures are moderate between 200 C and -100 C).
2. Lay a close looped liquid heat exchanger from hot side (200 C) to shaded side of a hill (-100 C). Laying pipe is proven tech.
3. Put a steam turbine in between to harvest the temperature gradient between hot and shade sides, which can generate electricity. This is called a geothermal heat engine. It has been proven to work on Earth.
4. Need water? Use electricity to melt the ice or just haul it into the hot side inside a tank. Melting ice inside a tank is proven tech.
5. Need oxygen? Use electricity to vacuum smelt metals into oxygen and pure metals. Again, this is proven tech.
On Mars, here is how you (can't) moderate temperature, produce energy and produce chemicals with existing tech:
1. There is no energy on Mars except what is brought there, or solar panels that are 40% less powerful than Earth. There is no more power from the planet.
2. Need shelter? Too bad, you can't dig because permafrost is harder than even metal tools on Earth.
3. Need to moderate temperature? Where's your energy coming from?
4. Need water? You need energy to melt ice, there is no planetside energy source.
5. Need oxygen? You need energy to run chemistry against thermodynamic gradients and Mars has little of it.
Notice how on Mercury, you need ultra high tech stuff like sheet metal and pipes to generate energy, moderate temperature and produce chemicals. Very, very hard stuff.
But on Mars, you need ez pz stuff like an energy source that's light, long lasting, doesn't need fuel and is extremely powerful just to not freeze, we have not even started to get into issues like radiation, chemical contamination, communication time, etc.