China's Lunar Ambitions Have Produced Tensions at Home

As China prepares to rocket its first space traveler into Earth orbit, the country's space officials also appear keen in lobbing a robotic probe to the Moon within three years.

The probe would be called Chang'e - named after a mythical lady who flew to the Moon for a lonely but peaceful and harmonious life.

However, all does not appear harmonious within Chinese science circles as to what priority such a project should receive. The jousting seems reminiscent of tensions between rival camps in NASA's own fiefdom.

The October 6 edition of the People's Daily noted China's ambitions to hurl a spacecraft to the Moon in three years.

"China will continue to develop its space exploration plans. At a future time, China will carry out lunar landing and flight experiments," Wang Shuquan, deputy secretary of the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, was quoted from an original story appearing in the Beijing Youth Daily.

Earlier this year, leading Chinese space experts were quoted by the People's Daily about a three-phase Moon program: orbiting, landing, and returning from the Moon lunar samples. In another article, Ye Peijian of the China Research Institute of Space Technology stated that progress is being made on a lunar prospecting satellite.

Ye was reported to say that work on the satellite had begun in April of last year. Ten key task teams had been assigned duties to ready a lunar probe, he added.

China's lunar exploration project needs careful consideration, cautions a Chinese space expert.

Senior space scientist, Hu Wenrui of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Mechanics, has urged prudence in orchestrating any lunar robotic program. He commented on China's burgeoning lunar aspirations in an interview with the Chinese-language newspaper, Science Times.

"It would be unlikely for us to make a significant research breakthrough from the current projects of lunar exploration," Hu noted. The expert in microgravity research underscored Japan's Selene project to the Moon in 2005, a probe loaded with science gear and first-rate objectives.

Hu said it seems impossible for newcomers like China to contrive a more sophisticated Moon exploration project and obtain better data. Since Selene's science data would be publicly available, repeated observation without innovative or scientific breakthrough would be insignificant and a waste of scientific resources, he explained in the interview.

Moreover, contrasted to the United States, Europe, and Japan, Hu said that China is short in expertise in space exploration. Many Chinese scientists are novices in this arena, he said, as they shifted to the field only a few years ago, the Science Times article states.

"I have no objection to China's launching of a spacecraft for lunar exploration," Hu states.

Since all space activities of China have been carried out in near-Earth space, "our space activities have to expand to further and further." In that sense, it is not so much a scientific exploration as an experiment, Hu points out.

A member of the International Academy of Astronautics, Hu urges that China's Moon survey plans have clearly defined objectives and goals, matched with the right instruments to do the job. Also, he said it would be prudent to search for research breakthroughs, not repeat the work of others.

The most important is "to put the lunar exploration project into the overall consideration of the national development of space science or even the nation's [science and technology] plan as a whole," Hu stresses. "If we want to catch up with the forerunners in this field, we must highlight our priorities."

In the Science Times interview, Hu calls for more attention to be placed on space astronomy and solar-terrestrial studies. "The disciplinary layout for our space science should be drawn up from the overall situation of the whole country."

China Waging War on Space-Based Weapons***The PLA also is experimenting with other types of satellite killers: land-based, directed-energy weapons and "micro-satellites" (search) that can be used as kinetic energy weapons. According to the latest (July 2003) assessment by the U.S. Defense Department, China will probably be able to field a direct-ascent anti-satellite system (search) in the next two to six years.

Such weapons would directly threaten what many believe would be America's best form of ballistic-missile defense: a system of space-based surveillance and tracking sensors, connected with land-based sensors and space-based missile interceptors. Such a system could negate any Chinese missile attack on the U.S. homeland.

China may be a long way from contemplating a ballistic missile attack on the U.S. homeland. But deployment of American space-based interceptors also would negate the missiles China is refitting to threaten Taiwan and U.S. bases in Okinawa and Guam. And there's the rub, as far as the PLA is concerned.

Clearly, Beijing's draft treaty to ban deployment of space-based weapons is merely a delaying tactic aimed at hampering American progress on ballistic-missile defense while its own scientists develop effective countermeasures.

What Beijing hopes to gain from this approach is the ability to disrupt American battlefield awareness--and its command and control operations--and to deny the U.S. access to the waters around China and Taiwan should the issue of Taiwan's sovereignty lead to conflict between the two Chinas.

China's military thinkers are probably correct: The weaponization of space is inevitable. And it's abundantly clear that, draft treaties and pious rhetoric notwithstanding, they're doing everything possible to position themselves for dominance in space. That's worth keeping in mind the next time they exhort "peace-loving nations" to stay grounded.***

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China's PLA Sees Value in Pre-emptive Strike Strategy [Full Text] WASHINGTON, Aug. 11, 2003 - The military strategy of "shock and awe" used to stun the Iraqi military in the opening campaign of Operation Iraqi Freedom might be used by the Chinese if military force is needed to bring Taiwan back under communist control.

According to the released recently The Annual Report on the Military Power of the People's Republic of China, the country's military doctrine now stresses elements such as "surprise, deception and pre- emption." Furthermore, the report states that Beijing believes that "surprise is crucial" for the success of any military campaign.

Taiwan, located off the coast of mainland China, claimed independence from the communist country in 1949. The island has 21 million people and its own democratic government.

China, with 1.3 billion people, claims sovereignty over the tiny island, sees Taiwan as a breakaway province and has threatened to use military force against Taiwan to reunify the country. And China's force against Taiwan could come as a surprise attack.

But "China would not likely initiate any military action unless assured of a significant degree of strategic surprise," according to the report.

The report states that Lt. Gen. Zheng Shenxia, chief of staff of the People's Liberation Army's Air Force and an advocate of pre-emptive action, believes the chances of victory against Taiwan would be "limited" without adopting a pre-emptive strategy.

The report says that China now believes pre-emptive strikes are its best advantage against a technologically superior force. Capt. Shen Zhongchang from the Chinese Navy Research Institute is quoted as saying that "lighting attacks and powerful first strikes will be widely used in the future."

China's new military thinking has evolved over the past decade. PLA observers have been studying U.S. military strategies since the first Gulf War, when they noticed how quickly U.S. forces using state-of-the-art weapons defeated Iraqi forces that in some ways resemble their own.

Since then, the report states the PLA has shifted its war approach from "annihilative," where an army uses "mass and attrition" to defeat an enemy, to more "coercive warfighting strategies."

The PLA now considers "shock power" as a crucial coercion element to the opening phase of its war plans and that PLA operational doctrine is now designed to actively "take the initiative" and "catch the enemy unprepared."

"With no apparent political prohibitions against pre- emption, the PLA requires shock as a force multiplier to catch Taiwan or another potential adversary, such as the United States, unprepared," the report states.

Ways the PLA would catch Taiwan and the U.S. off guard include strategic and operational deception, electronic warfare and wearing down or desensitizing the opponent's political and military leadership. Another objective would be to reduce any indication or warning of impending military action, the report states.

Preparing for a possible conflict with Taiwan and deterring the United States from intervening on Taiwan's behalf is the "primary driver" of China's military overhaul, according to this year's report. Over the course of the next decade the country will spend billions to counter U.S. advances in warfare technology, the report states. [End]

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China develops its first solid-fuel satellite rocket***BEIJING (AFP) - China has successfully test-fired its first four-stage solid-fuel rocket capable of putting small satellites into space on short notice, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The launch of the Pioneer I rocket on September 16 at north China's Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center makes China only the third country capable of developing such rockets, after the United States and Russia, a spokesman for China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp (CASIC) told Xinhua.

The rocket is capable of putting payloads of up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) into orbit around the earth to help with resource exploration, environmental monitoring and surveys, the spokesman said. The announcement comes just weeks ahead of China's planned manned space mission, which is widely expected to take place next month, based on media reports. The Xinhua report did not say whether the rocket had any connection to the launching of space flights or whether it could launch satellites for military use.***

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Red Dragon Rising: China's Space Program Driven by Military Ambitions***But one China space watcher paints a troublesome picture.

Richard Fisher, a senior Fellow with the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C., said that China's unmanned satellite program is "accelerating in an upward direction, rather quickly."

That acceleration, Fisher said, has ominous portent.

"They are preparing for a post-2005 conflict time frame. I think by 2005, or soon thereafter, an initial photo and radar satellite constellation will be in place. It will be sophisticated and large, and sufficient for Chinese needs to support a military campaign over Taiwan," he said.

Fisher said that China's piloted Shenzhou can be expected to contribute imaging or other reconnaissance data to the country's People's Liberation Army (PLA) in some form. "It will not be a purely science for science-sake undertaking," he said.

"Their manned space program is, first and foremost, a political exercise for the communist leadership," said "It is an exercise designed to prove the continuing worth of the communist government to the Chinese people," he said.

American reliance on space continues to grow, a fact not missed by China, Fisher said. In the PLA there is a very clear realization that space control, in the American sense, is something that they require as well, he said.

"China needs to be able to deny to the United States access and use of space, as they themselves exploit space to support their own forces," Fisher said.

To this end, Fisher said that researchers in China are busy at work on high-energy lasers to dazzle U.S. satellites. Another part of that nation's space arsenal are nanosatellites, tiny craft that can be used as anti-satellite weaponry. Furthermore, the Chinese have a small aircraft-shaped space shuttle, a vehicle easily modified to carry missiles sufficient for satellite interception, he said.***

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China's great leap forward: Space

CHINA'S NEW FRONTIER China finds launches lucrative

CHINA'S NEW FRONTIER: U.S. threw out man who put China in space

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Manned space flight worth the risks By Jake Garn *** HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT is not a luxury. Nor is it a whim, passing fad or eccentric hobby. Make no mistake, human space flight is critical to the future well-being of the United States and, ultimately, the world. The continuation of human space flight is a necessity.

For those who accept that premise, it is vital that we get the space shuttle flying again as safely and as quickly as possible. Our very future may depend on it.

To not understand or acknowledge that Earth is but a stepping stone for humankind is to ignore history, reality and Manifest Destiny. Through age, natural catastrophe or by our own hand, life on Earth has a finite amount of time left. For the human species to go on, we must go out into the far and promising reaches of space. We will do this, or we will eventually perish on the stepping stone adjacent to endless possibilities and salvation.

....Human space flight is not a luxury, and the People's Republic of China, above all others, seems to recognize that. The PRC is poised to launch its first astronauts, and with them launch potentially the most ambitious plan ever for humans in space.

They have their eyes on the moon, Mars and beyond. The question for our country is: Do we cede the future of human space flight, and the future in general, to them or another nation?***

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