India takes on old rival China in new Asian space race

The Times, U.K ^ | June 20, 2008 | Jeremy Page

[sukhoi-30mki]

India takes on old rival China in new Asian space race

Jeremy Page, in Delhi

The world’s two most populous countries — and biggest emerging economies — have fought one war on land and are rapidly modernising their air, naval and nuclear forces in case of another.

Now India and China are taking their rivalry into orbit, with Delhi determined to catch up with Beijing in what is starting to look like an Asian version of the Cold War “space sace”.

General Deepak Kapoor, India’s Chief of Army Staff, has spoken publicly for the first time of his fears about China’s military space programme and the need for India to accelerate its own.

“The Chinese space programme is expanding at an exponentially rapid pace in both offensive and defensive content,” he told a conference attended by India’s military top brass this week. “The Indian Army’s agenda for exploitation of space will have to evolve dynamically. It should be our endeavour to optimise space applications for military purposes.”

Describing space as “the ultimate high ground”, he called for the establishment of an interservices space command to supervise surveillance, reconnaissance and rapid response.

It was a rare example of a top Indian official — military or civilian — speaking openly about India’s usually secret military space programme and about its strategic rivalry with China. India and China enjoyed close ties in the 1950s but fell out when Delhi gave refuge to the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader, in 1959. The two countries then fought a brief but bloody border war in 1962.

Now they are trying to forge a new economic partnership but have yet to resolve the border dispute and remain deeply suspicious about each other’s ambitions — notably in space.

[Savage Beast]

"Beijing’s space programme is already several years ahead of Delhi’s"

The Indians can thank themselves. If they had been clever enough to give significant donations to the Clinton and Gore campaigns, they could have gotten the same advantages as the Chinese--maybe more, depending on the donations, of course.

[SlapHappyPappy]

The world’s two most populous countries — and biggest emerging economies — have fought one war on land and are rapidly modernizing their air, naval and nuclear forces in case of another.

It's about time that someone in the press started pointing out that the friendship between China and India is uneasy at best. When India was rapidly trying to modernize they took whatever they could get from whomever was offering. It had very little to do with ideology and was all about pragmatism.

Now the need for assistance is waning and you have two large countries, sharing a border, with drastically different cultures, who are in competition in just about every way imaginable.

I have long thought there was a reason China was building their military and, despite what they may say, it's not just because they are our rivals. They're smart enough to know their biggest threats, and biggest opportunities, are right in their neighborhood.

[cmdjing]

Actually China’s space program is ahead by more than a decade. Chinese lift vehicles are more mature and their engines are more advanced and have more thrust. This isn’t because of Clinton & Gore but rather because China’s Space & Missile program was pioneered much earlier, thanks to one man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsien_Hsue-shen

[Cronos]

Yes, the Chinese missiles are ok — they gave these to the north Koreans, so the NKs can now threaten S Korea and Japan. Their nukes are phizzles — the Chinese gave these to the Pakis, but when the Pakis tested them, most fizzled out.