China and Fear

by | Nov 3, 2011 | China | 1 comment

On 31 October, a Long March IIF launched from the Jiuquan launch site in western China. The successful launch carried a Shenzhou 8 capsule, which, though capable of carrying taikonauts, was empty.

On 2 November the capsule docked with Tiangong 1, a space station test bed, making China only the third nation to bring two spacecraft together in orbit (excluding international collaborations like Apollo-Soyuz and ISS).

Despite outwards congratulations from the US government, the general reaction to China’s spacefaring has largely been one of suspicion (and occasionally outright hostility). Not that the US government as a whole is afraid of China, but there is enough to drive policy towards exclusion.

Take as an example the recent Congressional hearing, in which Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), to name one, is vociferous in denouncing any collaboration with China, despite that such collaboration is already legally banned. The result is that NASA is barred from sharing innocuous data with the Chinese government, or even meeting with Chinese representatives. Another result is that China is banned from docking with the ISS — possibly not a deciding factor but certainly an influence on the Chinese decision to build a competing space station, which should be finished by 2020, the year that ISS is due to deorbit.

Bob Bigelow, speaking at ISPCS in Las Cruces, gave a controversial talk in which he posited that China is preparing to lay claim to much of the moon and Mars. His solution is to get there and lay claim first.

One might be reminded of the Red Scare from the Cold War, when any Soviet move was an escalation, and so was any potentially adverse move by anyone else, for that matter. The US reaction resulted in both positive (landing on the moon, rapid technical development) and negative (nuclear bombers on alert, several wars); in any case, in retrospect it often turned out to be a serious overreaction, and sometimes provocation. The Soviets did this as well, believing they were under essentially the same threat we believed ourselves to be under.

There are opportunities for collaboration, for trust-building measures that the US is wilfully ignoring. Competition can be a great thing, but too much competition and the results play out in other areas. In scientific and economic realms, US institutions are busy forging bonds in China that affect the policy of both governments. Space can be a unique, mutually beneficial stage for collaboration or geopolitical trust-building measures; instead it is currently a measure of distrust and fear. China is not an enemy on the scale of the Soviet Union, nor really even a peer competitor. It is puzzling that so many people seem to believe otherwise.

About Seradata

Seradata produces the renowned Seradata database. Trusted by over 100 of the world’s leading Space organisations, Seradata is a fully queryable database used for market analysis, failure/risk assessment, spectrum analysis and space situational awareness (SSA).

For more information go to https://www.seradata.com/product/

Related Articles

Categories

Archives

Tags

nasaspacexecoreviewsissesaArianespacechinavideoFalcon 9v1.2FT Block 525virgin galacticfalcon 9ULARoscosmosevaspacewalkDGABlue Originaviation weekInternational Space StationRocket LabaresIGTsoyuzBeidouawardsStarlinkAirbus DSboeingspaceSatellite broadcastingrussiamoonOneWebISROCargo Return VehiclemarsblogresearchspaceshiptwoorionjaxamarsimpactEutelsatdelayhyperbolademocratrocketlunarhypertextthales alenia spaceSESobamagoogle lunar prizelaunchVegatourismconstellationbarack obamafiguresnorthspaceflightIntelsatnode 2fundedElon MuskLockheed MartinRaymond Lygo2009Express MD-2Atlas Vromedassault aviationss2sstl2008wk2aviationLucyradiouksuborbitalVirgin Orbittestmissiledocking portexplorationSLSAriane 5 ECAinternetLong March 2D/2China Manned Space Engineeringsts-122Ariane 5Northrop GrummanElectronmissile defensenewspapercotsgalileospace tourismflight2010Long March 4CspaceportExpress AMU 1buildspace stationaltairsoyuz 2-1ashuttleProton Minternational astronautical congressscaled compositesAriane 6Intelsat 23space shuttleLauncherOneEuropean Space AgencyCosmoshanleybudgetrulesnew yorkLong March 2CInmarsatnew shepardVietnamatvshenzhoucongressMojaveboldenOrbital ATKcnesUS Air ForceGuiana Space Centerlunar landeriacApollolawsSpace Systems/LoralUK Space AgencyLong March 4BKuaizhou 1AkscElectron KSILSprotondarpalaunchesTalulah RileyVega CFalcon 9v1.2 Block 5North KoreaeuSkylonAstriumlanderbaseusaastronautdragonpicturefiveeventTelesatSpace InsuranceSSLViasatAprilSNC50thfalconWednesdaySea LaunchLong Marchinterviewcustomer

Stay Informed with Seradata

Stay informed on the latest news, insights, and more from Seradata by signing up for our newsletter.