Posted on 01/22/2004 12:04:01 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
BEIJING, Jan. 21 — When President Bush outlined his ambitious vision last week for a new era of space exploration, one country in particular was on his mind as he extended an invitation for international cooperation: China.
In the last year, China succeeded in becoming only the third nation to put an astronaut into orbit, definitively signaling that it intends to break into the front rank of space explorers.
The Chinese plan to send more astronauts into space next year, to launch a Moon probe within three years, and are aiming to land an unmanned vehicle on the Moon by 2010, a half decade before the deadline President Bush set for the next Americans to arrive there.
The United States and China now stand at a critical juncture, between cooperation or competition, in what could be a costly and dangerous new space race that extends even beyond China.
Mr. Bush was deliberately reaching out to the Chinese, a senior administration official in Washington said. "The reference to international cooperation was not a throwaway line," said the official of the speech on Jan. 14. "It was an invitation. The president drew a day-night contrast. This is not the cold war."
But it could be. The Chinese are not alone in this new push to harness the power and prestige of space, which is fast becoming a necessary stop, like mastery of the atom, for aspiring global powers.
Nations like Brazil and India are taking ever wider steps to make sure that they are not left behind in the new space race, intensifying the pace of exploration by the developing world.
Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert the Chinese space program at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, said the Bush administration had no choice but to respond to China's recent successes with a space initiative.
"The success allowed China to reach out to other countries and they've been responding favorably, so we could not do nothing," she said in an interview. "While a space race is not a foregone conclusion, it is a possibility."
She added that the United States now had a window of opportunity for concord that might not last long. "Cooperation is the best position for the U.S. and the future," she said. "An inclusive vision will give the U.S. an opportunity to assume the mantle of leadership on a mission that could inspire the world."
The greatest concern is the militarization of space, using space-based weapons and satellites to extend the reach of nations or potential terrorists, and allowing more extensive and widespread intelligence gathering than ever before.
Such scenarios are central to the mistrust between the United States and China. Many American analysts note that China's manned space program falls under a wing of the People's Liberation Army, and suspect that China's primary ambitions in space are military.
Some analysts contend that China's manned space vehicle is specifically designed for potential military uses. The Chinese, meanwhile, saw the technological prowess displayed by the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are now emphasizing the importance of "information warfare," with the need for a presence in space.
In October, People's Liberation Army Daily said outer space would become a "sphere of warfare" because space-based satellite technologies were critical for a swift, modern military.
"It's clear that the Chinese are worried about the U.S. domination of space, and that the U.S. considers China as a potential competitor," said Adam Segal, a senior China expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It's probably a good time to try to talk about these things since we haven't moved very far along in any of these plans."
President Bush never mentioned China by name in his address, but the administration official said that by not limiting his call to Europe and Russia he was implicitly reaching out to Beijing. Asked for comment on playing a possible role in Mr. Bush's Moon-Mars endeavor, China's Foreign Ministry answered in broad terms, noting that China is committed to collaborating with other space-faring nations, including the United States.
But the Foreign Ministry also hinted at past frustrations, noting that the Chinese space program has already sought — without success — a stronger relationship with NASA. Since 2002, the ministry noted, the two sides have been talking about a meeting of the heads of the two space agencies.
"We hope the realization of this meeting will present an opportunity for developing Chinese-American cooperation in the space sphere," the ministry said in a written statement.
Brian Harvey, author of the forthcoming "China's Space Program: From Conception to Manned Space Flight," said the United States had in the past excluded China on space issues, partly as political retribution for the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. In one case, American officials denied visas for more than 50 Chinese officials to attend an annual meeting of the World International Space Congress held in Houston.
"The Chinese have felt very isolated," Mr. Harvey said.
Publicly, both American and Chinese officials now say the relationship is growing closer, even as frictions continue, particularly over Taiwan. Notably, the Chinese allowed Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to tour China's top-secret space command center in Beijing on the same day as Mr. Bush's speech on space.
The visit was part of a larger trip intended to build closer military ties. General Myers also met with his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Liang Guanglie, and later conferred with Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese president who remains in charge of the Chinese military.
At a news briefing, in a gesture to smooth tensions, General Myers was careful to praise China's successful launch last October. "Obviously, this is a big step for the Chinese space program, and we congratulate them," he said.
China has taken other important steps as well. It recently teamed up with the European Union on a new global satellite navigation system. In a different project, China and the European Space Agency launched a research satellite last month to study the Earth's magnetic fields, China's first such collaboration with developed countries, state news media reported. China has also joined with Brazil on satellite launches.
In all, China plans to launch 10 satellites this year, and a total of 30 by 2005; it currently has 16 in orbit. The satellites have scientific, commercial and military applications.
More bold are China's plans to build on the success of last year's Shenzhou 5 space orbit, and eventually to land on the Moon. Officials say next year's Shenzhou 6 mission is expected to carry two astronauts on a five- to seven-day space journey.
Efforts to reach the Moon are beginning in earnest this year, and some experts in the United States speak ominously of a "Red Moon" — the possibility that China might one day launch military astronauts into space with the aim of setting up a Communist lunar base.
Last March, Luan Enjie, director of the China National Aerospace Administration, described the Moon as "the focal point wherein future aerospace powers contend for strategic resources."
But Mr. Luan and other Chinese officials say China's lunar ambitions are wholly peaceful. Mr. Luan suggested that one of China's primary motivations for reaching the Moon was possible economic exploitation. He told People's Daily, the Communist Party's official newspaper, that China was also interested in developing lunar energy resources, like helium-3, a rare form of the element that scientists say could power advanced reactors on Earth.
In an interview this week, Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist for China's Moon program, said the program was part of China's larger efforts to become a leader in space.
"China has made a lot of achievements in satellite applications and manned space flight, but we haven't done much in deep space exploration," he said. "We need a breakthrough in this field to fill the gap. As a starting step, the Moon program is very necessary."
United States government documents, like the Air Force's Space Operations Doctrine and its Space Command's Strategic Master Plan, talk much about maintaining "space superiority" near Earth and even about using weapons in orbit. But they remain silent about the Moon.
"There is nothing in Air Force planning for the Moon," said Theresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information, a private research group in Washington.
Still, some analysts believe the Moon is part of a larger American military plan and interpreted Mr. Bush's speech as unilateral in emphasis, with echoes of the cold war.
"The Moon is a beachhead," said Alice Slater, director of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, a private group in New York. "It's the high ground from which they want to control space" she said of the Bush administration.
Bush administration officials say they are not worried that China's space achievements will undermine American prestige and leadership. Throwing open the door to Beijing on the Moon-Mars initiative, they added, stands to enhance American influence.
But the real potential for cooperation, the senior official said, "we're going to have to determine over time as China's activities unfold."
In the jubilant aftermath of the Shenzhou 5 flight, Chinese officials flirted with the notion of launching their own Mars mission by 2020. But this month, officials said any timetable was premature and that China was not yet far enough along to initiate such a program.
Meanwhile, the official Chinese news media have closely followed the exploits of the American robotic Mars explorer, Spirit, as have Chinese space officials.
"We have been always closely watching Mars exploration activities," Mr. Luan, the top space administrator said on the day Spirit landed. "We hope the U.S. mission will be a complete success in the days to come."
Jim Yardley reported from Beijing for this article and William J. Broad from New York.
I hope they do. We need something to light a fire under the politicians and the sheeple.
And even if it doesn't, I'd rather that there be a Red Chinese outpost on Mars than none at all.
According to the released recently The Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China, the country's military doctrine now stresses elements such as "surprise, deception and pre- emption." Furthermore, the report states that Beijing believes that "surprise is crucial" for the success of any military campaign.
Taiwan, located off the coast of mainland China, claimed independence from the communist country in 1949. The island has 21 million people and its own democratic government.
China, with 1.3 billion people, claims sovereignty over the tiny island, sees Taiwan as a breakaway province and has threatened to use military force against Taiwan to reunify the country. And China's force against Taiwan could come as a surprise attack.
But "China would not likely initiate any military action unless assured of a significant degree of strategic surprise," according to the report.
The report states that Lt. Gen. Zheng Shenxia, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army's Air Force and an advocate of pre-emptive action, believes the chances of victory against Taiwan would be "limited" without adopting a pre-emptive strategy.
The report says that China now believes pre-emptive strikes are its best advantage against a technologically superior force. Capt. Shen Zhongchang from the Chinese Navy Research Institute is quoted as saying that "lighting attacks and powerful first strikes will be widely used in the future."
China's new military thinking has evolved over the past decade. PLA observers have been studying U.S. military strategies since the first Gulf War, when they noticed how quickly U.S. forces using state-of-the-art weapons defeated Iraqi forces that in some ways resemble their own.
Since then, the report states the PLA has shifted its war approach from "annihilative," where an army uses "mass and attrition" to defeat an enemy, to more "coercive warfighting strategies."
The PLA now considers "shock power" as a crucial coercion element to the opening phase of its war plans and that PLA operational doctrine is now designed to actively "take the initiative" and "catch the enemy unprepared."
"With no apparent political prohibitions against pre- emption, the PLA requires shock as a force multiplier to catch Taiwan or another potential adversary, such as the United States, unprepared," the report states.
Ways the PLA would catch Taiwan and the U.S. off guard include strategic and operational deception, electronic warfare and wearing down or desensitizing the opponent's political and military leadership. Another objective would be to reduce any indication or warning of impending military action, the report states.
Preparing for a possible conflict with Taiwan and deterring the United States from intervening on Taiwan's behalf is the "primary driver" of China's military overhaul, according to this year's report. Over the course of the next decade the country will spend billions to counter U.S. advances in warfare technology, the report states. [End]
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China develops its first solid-fuel satellite rocket***BEIJING (AFP) - China has successfully test-fired its first four-stage solid-fuel rocket capable of putting small satellites into space on short notice, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
The launch of the Pioneer I rocket on September 16 at north China's Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center makes China only the third country capable of developing such rockets, after the United States and Russia, a spokesman for China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) told Xinhua.
The rocket is capable of putting payloads of up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) into orbit around the earth to help with resource exploration, environmental monitoring and surveys, the spokesman said. The announcement comes just weeks ahead of China's planned manned space mission, which is widely expected to take place next month, based on media reports. The Xinhua report did not say whether the rocket had any connection to the launching of space flights or whether it could launch satellites for military use.***
U.S. spent $75 billion on obesity-related ills
Red Dragon Rising: China's Space Program Driven by Military Ambitions***But one China space watcher paints a troublesome picture.
Richard Fisher, a senior Fellow with the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C., said that China's unmanned satellite program is "accelerating in an upward direction, rather quickly."
That acceleration, Fisher said, has ominous portent.
"They are preparing for a post-2005 conflict time frame. I think by 2005, or soon thereafter, an initial photo and radar satellite constellation will be in place. It will be sophisticated and large, and sufficient for Chinese needs to support a military campaign over Taiwan," he said.
Fisher said that China's piloted Shenzhou can be expected to contribute imaging or other reconnaissance data to the country's People's Liberation Army (PLA) in some form. "It will not be a purely science for science-sake undertaking," he said.
"Their manned space program is, first and foremost, a political exercise for the communist leadership," said "It is an exercise designed to prove the continuing worth of the communist government to the Chinese people," he said.
American reliance on space continues to grow, a fact not missed by China, Fisher said. In the PLA there is a very clear realization that space control, in the American sense, is something that they require as well, he said.
"China needs to be able to deny to the United States access and use of space, as they themselves exploit space to support their own forces," Fisher said.
To this end, Fisher said that researchers in China are busy at work on high-energy lasers to dazzle U.S. satellites. Another part of that nation's space arsenal are nanosatellites, tiny craft that can be used as anti-satellite weaponry. Furthermore, the Chinese have a small aircraft-shaped space shuttle, a vehicle easily modified to carry missiles sufficient for satellite interception, he said.***
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(December 09, 2001) China's great leap forward: Space [Excerpt] "The space industry is not only a reflection of the comprehensive national strength but also an important tool for leaping over the traditional developing stage," said Liu Jibin, minister of China's Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense.
If China makes that leap, the country's civil and military space efforts could close the gap between East and West in years instead of decades. Technology is critical to China's development of bigger, better missiles and space-based defenses as well as the country's commercial ambitions. Market reforms and cheap labor already are turning a once-stagnant, planned economy into a powerhouse.
Signs of the transformation can be seen everywhere in China's cities. Bumper-to-bumper car traffic has replaced bicycle gridlock. McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken are almost as common as traditional roadside food stalls. Chairman Mao's wardrobe has been mothballed in favor of Western fashions. Handbills and posters are more likely to tout the qualities of European cigarettes than the virtues of class struggle.
One thing, however, hasn't changed: Most of China's space program remains closed to the outside world. Even so, a few Chinese officials are cautiously -- almost reluctantly -- beginning to open up.
A two-week tour of Chinese aerospace facilities this fall and talks with high-level managers, many of whom have been off-limits to Americans, revealed this about the country's mysterious manned program:
China likely will launch its first astronaut sometime in 2003 after six or so unpiloted test flights of its manned spacecraft. The next test flight -- the third overall -- is expected to blast off before the end of January.
Preliminary design of a Chinese space station already is under way. A modest outpost with limited capabilities could be developed during the next decade.
And there's even talk of sending people to the moon and building lunar bases in the next decade. [End Excerpt]
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(December 10, 2001) CHINA'S NEW FRONTIER China finds launches lucrative [Excerpt] There also were accusations -- adamantly denied -- that Loral's chairman influenced a Clinton administration licensing decision with a hefty donation to the Democratic National Committee. License approval eventually was shifted from the Commerce Department to the more restrictive State Department.
The Clinton White House announced in November 2000 that it would resume processing export licenses and extend China's launch privileges through 2001 after Beijing agreed to a missile nonproliferation pact. But the Bush administration says outstanding issues remain in implementing the nonproliferation agreement. New satellite export licenses remain on hold. Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., and three other lawmakers urged President Bush in July not to resume licensing under any condition. [End Excerpt]
CHINA'S NEW FRONTIER: U.S. threw out man who put China in space[Excerpt] As World War II wound down, Tsien was made a colonel in the U.S. Army Air Forces and sent to Europe in 1945. His mission: Size up the German V-2 rocket program developed by Hitler's Third Reich.
There, he met and interviewed young Wernher von Braun, the V-2 project's technical director who one day would become the visionary behind the Saturn V rocket that put America on the moon. During their meeting, Tsien asked von Braun to put down on paper German breakthroughs and future space goals. The resulting report is credited with helping inspire development of the first U.S. satellites.
After the war, Tsien became the youngest full professor on the faculty at MIT. During a 1947 visit to see his family in China, he met Jiang Ying, a glamorous aristocrat who studied music in Germany and was one of China's most celebrated young sopranos. Her father -- a military adviser for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government -- was helping wage a civil war aimed at crushing Mao Tse Tung's communist rebels.
The couple married later that year and moved back to America. When Tsien re-entered the United States in Honolulu, he reflexively answered "no" to a question on an immigration form asking whether he had ever belonged to a group advocating overthrow of the U.S. government. [End Excerpt]
The Nationalists/KMT ruling the Republic of China (ROC) began to control Taiwan sometime between the end of WW2 and 1947, and the KMT continued to claim they were the legitimate government of all of China (or maintained that it would recapture the rest of China) for a few more decades.
The Communist People's Republic of China established itself in 1949, effectively declaring itself separate from the ROC, whose leaders had fled to Taiwan.
Never was Taiwan ruled by the Communists, so it appears impossible for Taiwan to have claimed independence from the Communists in 1949.
Derbyshire: SORRY STATE (Communist, Nationalist, and Dangerous)***No Chinese Imperial dynasty paid the least attention to Taiwan, or bothered to claim it. The Manchus did, though, in 1683, and ruled it in a desultory way, as a prefecture of Fujian Province, until 1887, when it was upgraded to a province in its own right. Eight years later it was ceded to Japan, whose property it remained until 1945. In its entire history, it has been ruled by Chinese people seated in China's capital for less than four years. China's current attitudes to Taiwan are, I think, pretty well known.***
Calling All Space Cadets: Orbit the Moon and Mars With 'Lunar Lander' Game - Thursday January 22, 5:06 am ET POWAY, Calif., Jan. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- An orbiting vehicle based on SpaceDev's real-life MoTV-powered space tug is used by would-be astronauts in the "Lunar Lander" simulator game, where post-modern space cadets maneuver the vehicle in "Lunar orbit" with a fixed amount of propellant. Seeking a laser beacon from the Moon's surface marking a site with water, the goal of the game is to guide, and safely land, the vehicle at the base of the laser marker. A safe landing at that location refills the vehicle's tanks, readying it for another mission. The game simulator can be downloaded free of charge from the www.spacedev.com product page.
"I founded SpaceDev to build and fly space missions beyond earth's orbit such that I had dreamed of since childhood. I intend this game to stimulate more interest in space among space enthusiasts both young and old and have them ride the spacecraft of commercial space invention and exploration," said Company founding chairman and chief executive, Jim Benson.
Lunar Lander is being produced in conjunction with game producer Beltminer, Inc., and being released by SpaceDev as part of its commitment to designing missions and spacecraft for the Mars and Lunar arenas. Beltminer created the popular "Beltminer Claim Stake," a 3D dexterity game about asteroid mining in our solar system. For more information, visit http://www.claimstake.com/
The Lunar Lander also encapsulates the concept of claiming and utilizing the valuable natural resources contained on the Moon, on Near Earth Asteroids (NEOs), and on Mars, stimulating and supporting the expansion of the human race into space through commercial private sector ventures. Since 1997, the Company has designed the Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP), Mars MicroMissions for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and a commercial Lunar orbiter for Boeing.
"There are vast natural resources in space, like water - 'the White Gold of space.' We can use these resources as stepping-stones for humanity to explore the Moon, the asteroids and Mars, and beyond to the stars," commented Benson.
Today, reaching Earth's orbit puts us only halfway to anywhere in the Solar System. Technological space-age development is preparing for larger and more aggressive missions. The Lunar Lander reveals just how current revolutionary technology might further the evolution of human civilization into outer space. For more news on commercial space technology, or further information about the Lunar Lander game, log onto www.spacedev.com.
China is Communist, but Taiwan is not and was never Communist.
I don't recall ever learning about Taiwan declaring independence in 1949 from Communist China, which was only established that year and never extended to Taiwan. In 1949 and continuing a few decades, the KMT still claimed to be the legitimate government of all the land/people that were formerly part of the Republic of China, so I can't imagine the KMT declaring independence.
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