Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

112 reMeMBerING the SpaCe aGe
event like China’s January 2007 ground-to-space missile destruction of one of
its weather satellites. Many in Western intelligence saw the act as clear enough
proof that Chinese nationalism is aggressive and a destabilizing force for
international peace and security, though not seeing a similar american missile
strike (from a U.S. warship) in mid-February 2008 to destroy an american
satellite loaded with toxic fuel as anything that need greatly bother the Chinese. 4
though it is outside the scope of this essay to cover the arguments made by the
United States and China for and against the two anti-satellite (aSat) events,
a few of the ironies associated with them may be registered in the form of the
following questions: how could China warn against and then strongly criticize
the U.S. missile attack of February 2008 without mentioning its own antisatellite
missile test of the previous year? Conversely, why didn’t Beijing use
the U.S. interception to justify ex post facto the unannounced destruction of its
own defunct satellite in January 2007? By what truly legitimate arguments can
China (or russia, for that matter) call for a complete ban on space weapons and
then be involved in testing such weapons? how can the United States expect
other countries such as China (and russia) to stay away from the development
of space weapons technology while simultaneously opposing treaties and other
measures to restrict space weapons?
professor Zheng’s insights into China’s “New Nationalism” may ofer
some help in promoting a better understanding of what is going on inside
China today, technologically and otherwise. Understood from within China’s
society and culture rather than from without, China’s New Nationalism should
be seen, in Zheng’s view, not as aggressive but as an understandable voice of
4.
the Chinese aSat missile in 2007 was a medium-range ballistic missile launched from Xichang
Satellite Launch Center, China’s major launch complex, located in Sichuan province in south
central China. the target destroyed was an eight-year-old Chinese weather satellite in orbit
some 535 miles above earth. as a number of Western commentators emphasized at the time,
this apparently successful aSat test was a major space “frst”—for the frst time in history a
missile launched from the ground destroyed a satellite, suggesting that the Chinese could now, at
least theoretically, shoot down spy satellites operated by the United States or other nations. (In a
1985 test, the U.S. shot down one of its satellites with a missile fred from a fghter aircraft.) For
representative U.S. and British immediate reactions to the Chinese anti-satellite missile test in
January 2007, see Marc Kaufman and Dafna Linzer, “China Criticized for anti-Satellite Missile
test; Destruction of aging Satellite Illustrates Vulnerability of U.S. Space assets,” Washington
Post, January 19, 2007, a01; Jon Kyl, “China’s anti-Satellite Weapons and american National
Security,” heritage Foundation Lecture No. 99, January 29, 2007, accessed at http://www.heritage.
org/Research/NationalSecurity/hl990.cfm; and “Chinese missile destroys satellite in space,” January
21, 2007, accessed at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news. For Chinese reaction to the U.S. destruction
of its satellite in February 2008, see David Byers and Jane Macartney, “China and russia cry
foul over satellite,” February 21, 2008, accessed at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/
us_and_americas/article3408155.ece; “China Warns U.S. on Satellite Missile test,” February 26,
2008, accessed at http://www.redorbit.com/modules/news/tools.php and thom Shanker, “Satellite
is destroyed but questions remain,” International Herald Tribune, February 21, 2008, accessed at
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/21/america/satellite.php.