The title is a little bit ambiguous, so here's a clarification. This is China's first manual space docking, not the first one ever performed. The US first accomplished this in 1966. Nevertheless, it is a big stepping stone for the Chinese space program.
Was in Russia a few years ago, staying in a high tech hub city that was built to work with the space station - heard a story about the Russian Space agency hiring a Chinese mathematics genius - he couldn't speak a word of Russian and had to go everywhere with a translator. Because of this the Russian scientists were a little less diligent with what they said about him, and what they left lying around. A couple of months later he had disappeared, turns out he had studied in St. Petersberg and spoke fluent Russian - at that point the Chinese space program made a huge jump forwards, and a few years later had launched their first manned capsule.