TAIYUAN - President Xi Jinping has called for improving the country's rocket launch and test capabilities.

Xi, who also is general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, commented as he inspected a space force unit in Shanxi province on Thursday.

About 9 am, Xi arrived at the unit's history museum. The military base, first set up in 1960s, was domestically designed and built national defense testing ground.