"We welcome this development and congratulate China for joining the club of space powers that have their own manned space programs," ITAR-TASS quoted the first deputy of the Russian space agency Nikolai Moiseyev as saying.

China launched its first astronaut aboard the Shenzhou V craft, becoming only the third country after the United States and the former Soviet Union to put a man in space 42 years after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's epic first flight.

European Space Agency (ESA) director general Jean-Jacques Dordain hailed it as an outstanding achievement demonstrating the reliability of China's aerospace technology.

"This mission could open up a new era of wider cooperation in the worlds space community," he said.

European experts also suggested that China's manned orbital flight could help it muscle its way aboard the financially troubled International Space Station (ISS).

Cooperation between the Paris-based ESA and China dates back to an agreement in 1980 for sharing scientific information and ESA said a five-year agreement on peaceful cooperation in space was close to completion.

It will cover space science, Earth observation, environmental monitoring, meteorology, telecommunications and satellite navigation, microgravity research for biology and medicine, and human resource development and training.

The head of France's space agency CNES said the launch "was the result of strong political will and remarkable technological capabilities."

It "represents the culmination of the efforts that China has chosen to deploy over many years to develop an ambitious and diversified space programme in the service of its economic, scientific and technical development," CNES president Yannick d'Escatha said.

French ESA astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoye compared the Chinese astronauts to American and Soviet space pioneers John Glenn and Yury Gagarin.

Speaking on French television, he said: "He carries with him the pride of his country that is banking on this success for China's industrial image...an astronaut testing a new spacecraft, a new trajectory and and new landing site."

Scientists in India, apparently piqued by Beijing's manned space mission, recently announced plans for an unmanned voyage to the moon in 2008.

But on Wednesday, they were full of praise. "It is absolutely fantastic. China needs to be congratulated as it has become the third nation to send a man to space," said U.R. Rao, former chief of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

But the reaction was not without a hint of envy. "It is not that we lack the technological capability. If the government changes its view (on space programmes) then a manned mission is very much possible. India has the scientific capability," Rao told AFP.

India's rival Pakistan praised its long-term communist ally.

"This is no doubt a very important milestone in the progress and advancement made by China in space technology," President Pervez Musharraf wrote to his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao.

In Hong Kong, China's success brought out a burst of nationalistic pride.

"I'm proud of being Chinese," said retired businessman Cheung Man-hung, who watched images of the launch on a giant television screen outside a shopping mall in the city.

The Japanese government congratulated China but Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Japan was not lagging China.

"I don't think we are necessarily behind. There are many things that can be achieved with unmanned missions. Japan has its way of doing things."

Japan's space programme has focused on unmanned rocket launches as the nation tries to enter the commercial satellite launch market and put up its own spy satellites to monitor potentially threatening activity in North Korea.

South Korean officials were also hoping China's launch would give a boost to the country's own space programme. "It's something for Asia. I hope this will encourage South Koreans to pay more attention to their own country's fledgling space program," said science and technology ministry spokesman Lee Sang-Mok.

In Prague, Czech cosmonaut Vladimir Remek, who in 1978 became the first non-Soviet and non-American man in space when he took part in a Soviet mission, hailed the Chinese triumph and appealed for greater international space cooperation.

"The mission demonstrates that China is a country with state-of-the-art technology, not only scientifically and technically but with the potential and capacity to concentrate forces and resources," he said on radio.

"I would like to see the trend continue towards concentration and implementation of international projects on the basis of jointly developed resources."

The British Minister for Science and Innovation, Lord Sainsbury, currently in Beijing, said British Prime Minister Tony Blair "would like to congratulate China for this successful launch.

"He has asked me to say how impressed he is by the dedication and skill of all those involved in this historic mission."

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