Posted on 11/06/2009 3:05:28 PM PST by gaijin
The Obama adminstration must react responsibly to China’s declaration that military operations in space are inevitable, a top China expert says.
“How will the US react to Chinese diplomatic efforts in light of the PLA’s blunt statements on space warfare? This is something the Obama administration has to take into account,” said Dean Cheng, China specialist at Washington’s Heritage Foundation. “Are we going to see outrage, any meaningful reactions to the Chinese statements or again that it was someone speaking out of school and we just aren’t sure.”
Cheng was referring to what appears to mark a major shift in Chinese military and arms control strategy. The head of the PRC’s air force has said in an official interview that military operations in space are an “historical inevitability.”
“As far as the revolution in military affairs is concerned, the competition between military forces is moving towards outer space… this is a historical inevitability and a development that cannot be turned back,” said air force commander Xu Qiliang in an interview with the official People’s Liberation Army Daily.
“Only power can protect peace,” the commander said in an interview celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PRC’s air force.
For years, Chinese diplomats and military leaders have hewn to the line that the PRC pursued only peaceful uses of outer space. Chinese diplomats, working with Russia, pushed their own version of peaceful agreements on the uses of space, submitting a draft treaty in 2008 at the UN Conference on Disarmament that would have prohibited space-based missile defenses, among other things.
Joan Johnson Freese, professor at the Naval War College and one of the top experts on Chinese miltiary space policy and capabilities, bemoaned the general’s comments, saying they sound “eerily like documents and statements from USAF Space Command.” Freese said the only difference between the two sides is that “the Chinese are still calling for superiority rather than dominance.”
The Bush administration’s National Space Policy, released in October 2006, rejected new space arms control agreements if they would “limit” U.S. options in space. Some analysts believe China was reacting to this policy when it performed its January 11, 2007 anti-satellite test.
However, Cheng of the Heritage Foundation said he does not think the general’s statement “is really much of a departure from what the PLA has been thinking for some time.… What you have is the PLA making that statement publicly.”
Cheng thinks the most significant fact about the general’s declaration is that it came from an Air Force official. Unlike the United States, where the Air Force is inextricably linked to space policy and operations, “until three or four years ago the [Chinese] Air Force did not have an overt role in space issues. What does this suggest about who actually runs China’s space policy and military issues?” he wondered.
Cheng said the policy declaration did not necessarily indicate that the PLA was making new policy. After all, there have been clear indications that the PLA was leaning this way. After the Chinese anti-satellite test, Senior Colonel Yao Yunzhu of the PLA’s Academy of Military Sciences said that “outer space is going to be weaponized in our lifetime” and that “if there is a space superpower, it’s not going to be alone, and China is not going to be the only one.”
But Cheng said, “the PLA has never said they would not do military space operations. They just haven’t been quoted at all. Now the silence has ended,” he said.
As an example of how the PLA sometimes makes policy — something the Foreign Ministry can rarely do since it does not have direct access to the PRC president, as does the military — without public declarations having been made, he pointed to the anti-satellite test. While China’s Foreign Ministry hemmed and hawed about just why China performed the test, some of the people who designed the missile’s seeker later received awards.
Communists vs. Capitalists? So it’s the US, China, and North Korea on one team vs... India?
Obama will apologize again for the United States stating that we have used too much space before he cowers in the corner with an excuse that he has to evaluation the situation. China will reak havoc on the United States with missles from space and Obama will come back and say that he is on the verge of a decision. Zero will wait until the United States is totally decimated before someone ...
If this is the opening idea...
there is no reason to read further...
as we all know,...
that will never happen!!!
Obama will make certain that any new antisat tech
at the Dept of Commerce is IMMEDIATELY transferred to
the PRC with copies to all Islamic countries.
China and India are on the Capitalist team - the US isn't sure who it wants to play for. :)
Obama....”Present”.
The world doesn’t even bother to hide what it’s going to do anymore. It tells us straight out. And Obama...?
... which is how he mails in his "decision" when he's actually out to lunch.
Now aren't we proud of all the morons who voted for Clinton -- who GAVE the Chicoms all our missile, nuke and computer technology? Oh -- I forgot. It was more important to vote for ANYone from the 'RAT party to protect Roe v. Wade than to ensure the survival of the USA.
If we ever have a war with a country, with the technology to take out the GPS sattelite it would be foolish to think they wouldnt do it.
Too much dependence on GPS in our missiles , our ships, planes, and even with our troops.
BTTT!
The US does not have to be on any team - it is defeating itself just fine by itself.
When the first orbiting battlestation becomes operational it better have the stars and stripes on it. Anything else is disaster for the Earth.
ping
When asked a couple weeks ago about his position on funding NASA, Marco Rubio’s first response was that we need to support NASA, and space technology in general, because China was going to weaponize space.
While I find science very cool, I didn’t think I had any right to expect others to pay for my interest in space and technology. I hadn’t thought about the military angle, which does make it something the gov’t spends money on that’s actually Constitutional.
“Barry in over his pay grade.”
He’s ineffective because he’s an ideologue whose biggest goal appears to be to remake the ‘unfair’ US.
Q. What do you get if you cross Jimmy Carter and Saruman?
A. The Messiah. The Carter half is why he needs a teleprompter.
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