This was a great sci-fi movie that has all the ingredients I'd ever want. And then came the China involvement in the rescue effort.

Get used to it. Hollywood studios have begun the process of COMPLETELY altering their core story line to make films more attractive to the gargantuan Chinese viewer base. The Chinese element in this film crashes into the core story line so hard and with such utter lack of congruence that it is beyond a distraction, it's just a suspension-of-disbelief buster. Sure, the Chinese have a just-barely viable space program, NOTHING compared to Japan, Russia, the US, France, England.. but hey, they're riding to the rescue in this film.

Hollywood, fork off.