I'm curious why the Long March 8 warranted a new designation. From the general details on Wikipedia, it looks like a Long March 7 with half the boosters.
From what I can tell, the LM8 also differs in that it uses a hydrolox second stage that is typically the third stage of the LM7A. So it seems to be an LM7A without the kerolox middle stage and with fewer boosters.
The hydrolox stage is shared one of the older hypergolic Long March rockets too, it looks like. Either way, unless there are more changes under the skin, it doesn't seem to warrant a new model number, like how the (frankly terrifying) Long March 5B configuration didn't get its own number.
