Little is know of the Chinese Mars exploration program. While the Moon is the first priority, there are plans for Martian exploration that follow upon the work done in the lunar Chang'e program. China has been studying the necessity and feasibility of Mars exploration since early 1990s as part of the national "863 Planetary Exploration" project, according to Liu Zhenxing, a researcher from the CAS Center for Space Science and Applied Research (CSSAR)
The overall plan could have four phases:

Phase 1 (up to 2009) includes all the preparations before the first mission. This includes international cooperation, definition of exploration goals and projects, and key technologies.
Phase 2 (after 2009) includes orbiter missions that probe the Martian environment, preparing for future soft-landing missions on Mars.
Phase 3 would launch spacecraft to land on the red planet, including rovers.
Phase 4 would establish surface observation stations, develop shuttle vehicles between Earth and Mars, and build bases that robonauts would attend to. The work in this phase would create a foundation for future human flights to Mars and human-tended observing outpost. Yinghuo-1
On March 26, 2007, the director of the China National Space Administration, Sun Laiyan, and the head of the Russian Space Agency, Anatoly Perminov signed the "Cooperative Agreement between the China National Space Administration and the Russian Space Agency on joint Chinese-Russian exploration of Mars". This include the launch of a Mars probe named Yinghuo-1 scheduled for October 2009. The probe will be 75 centimeters long, 75 centimeters wide and 60 centimeters high. Weighing 110 kilograms it is designed for a two-year mission, according to Chen Changya, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Satellite Engineering.
Chinese Yinghuo-1 and Russian Phobos-Grunt will be sent together to Mars by a Russian Soyuz-2/1b rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome on October, 2009. On Aug.-Sept. 2010 , after a 10 – 11.5 months cruise, Yinghuo-1 separates and enters a 800 x 80 000 km three day equatorial orbit (5° inclination). The spacecraft is expected to remain on Martian orbit for one year. Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1 will conduct Mars ionosphere occultation experiments.
Yinghuo-1 will focus mainly on the study of the external environment of Mars. Space center researchers will use photographs and data to study the magnetic field of Mars and the interaction between ionospheres, escape particles and solar wind.