Unlikely Kudos to Beijing’s space program come from Imagethief and B J Black.:
So China’s two astronauts have just returned from four days in orbit to heroes’ welcomes, and China has just announced plans for a spacewalk by 2007 and a female astronaut.
Imagethief would like to take this moment to applaud the Chinese space program for two reasons. First, as a professional spin-doctor, I appreciate that a nation indifferent to repairing the sink-holes in
the sidewalk outside my apartment can muster the drive to fire
astronauts into outer space.
It goes to show you that China’s priorities are, quite correctly, set on propaganda. I don’t say this lightly. Space programs have long served as diversions from other, more pressing matters, such as, say, Southeast Asian wars. Furthermore, recent rallying points in China have largely revolved around the heinous Japanese, so it’s good to see some national symbolism that is more positive, if still phallic and potentially military in deployment.
Second, China’s ability to casually broadcast its citizens into orbit it brings this world something we have sorely lacked since, arguably, 1969: a space race.
Via China Challenges, the second analyst in this VOA report discusses why China’s space program may be a good thing for Taiwan and its allies.:
China’s second manned space launch has ignited a new round of debate over the implications of the PRC’s burgeoning space capabilities. “China is serious in investing” in space capabilities that have “significant military applications in the future,” retired Air Force China specialist Mark Stokes tells Voice of America.
“Space assets, as well as countering… the U.S. use of space or other countries’ use of space, are important force multipliers that can help to even the playing field when you are going up against a technologically superior adversary.”
According to Stokes, the space launch constitutes “a stepping stone for a longer-range program to make them a significant player in military space in the future.”
Others, however, take a different view. The Chinese “already have so many other programs to weaponize and militarize space that would be more effective in a shorter time,” says Larry Wortzel of the Heritage Foundation.
“I would rather see them go ahead with the manned space program and use the money on that because I think in the near term, it makes the United States, Taiwan, and Japan safer.”
