As China flexes its financial,military and political might and continues to make border and island incursions into the disputed terrotories held by its neighbours (India, Vietnam, Japan. Philippines, Taiwan etc), fears remain that China may one day resort to full blown military action, especially if China’s own prosperity or political stability ever falters. In being viewed as a potential enemy to USA and its allies, China is thus currently banned from receiving US miltary and space technology.
While the blanket nature of such export restrictions has been counterproductive to US space exports, critics have further pointed up the hypocrisy over this stance since it does not apparentlly prevent the US government from indirectly boosting the Chinese space programme in its own way. This was after the US Department of Defense sheepishly admitted that it is leasing communications capacity on China’s Apstar 7 satellite in order to provide US forces operating in Africa some decent communications. The $10.6 million leasing contract officially expires in May and the US miltary want to renew it as there is little other communications capacity in the region – though their political masters are now expected to end it.
Update: They might be under fire for doing so, but the US Department of Defense has approved the renewal of the one year Apstar 7 capacity leasing contract with APT Satellite Holdings (which is indirectly part owned by the Chinese government) via Harris CapRock Government Solutions which provides the US armed forces with third party communications capacity. The contract is reportedly worth $10.7 million.
