China, politics, and space
This interesting essay today describing China’s space policy and its ramifications for the United States found this most significant quote from a Chinese official:
A senior official with the CNSA’s lunar program has been reported by the Daily Beast as saying the moon and Mars (and presumably myriad other rocks out there) are the equivalent of the islands in strategic locations in the Indo-Pacific region that China contests with Japan and other countries:
The universe is an ocean, the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island. If we don’t go there now even though we’re capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants. If others go there, then they will take over, and you won’t be able to go even if you want to. This is reason enough.
The fact the CCP views real estate in the solar system the same way as real estate on Earth is both instructive and amusing.
I don’t find this Chinese attitude amusing in the least. It suggests quite starkly China’s intention to claim all the land it occupies in space, in direct violation of the Outer Space Treaty. Unlike the western nations, it doesn’t care that under that treaty’s restrictions, it can’t provide property rights to its citizens. It will possess everything it gets in space, for itself.
All the more reason for the U.S. to push for the Artemis Accords, which China rejects, as those accords bypass the restrictions of the Outer Space Treaty and make property rights possible in western space settlements. In the end, every nation that establishes a base or colony in space is going to claim it, notwithstanding the Outer Space Treaty, so establishing a framework for U.S. law in those colonies is essential. The accords are a first step in doing so.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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This interesting essay today describing China’s space policy and its ramifications for the United States found this most significant quote from a Chinese official:
A senior official with the CNSA’s lunar program has been reported by the Daily Beast as saying the moon and Mars (and presumably myriad other rocks out there) are the equivalent of the islands in strategic locations in the Indo-Pacific region that China contests with Japan and other countries:
The universe is an ocean, the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island. If we don’t go there now even though we’re capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants. If others go there, then they will take over, and you won’t be able to go even if you want to. This is reason enough.
The fact the CCP views real estate in the solar system the same way as real estate on Earth is both instructive and amusing.
I don’t find this Chinese attitude amusing in the least. It suggests quite starkly China’s intention to claim all the land it occupies in space, in direct violation of the Outer Space Treaty. Unlike the western nations, it doesn’t care that under that treaty’s restrictions, it can’t provide property rights to its citizens. It will possess everything it gets in space, for itself.
All the more reason for the U.S. to push for the Artemis Accords, which China rejects, as those accords bypass the restrictions of the Outer Space Treaty and make property rights possible in western space settlements. In the end, every nation that establishes a base or colony in space is going to claim it, notwithstanding the Outer Space Treaty, so establishing a framework for U.S. law in those colonies is essential. The accords are a first step in doing so.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
“The universe is an ocean,”
I remember that exact quote. From IAC 2018 or 2019. By some astropol analyst. But most people ignored it.
“in direct violation of the Outer Space Treaty.”
Why should they care? If they want, they can leave with a year’s notice and do whatever they want.
It’s not amusing, but it is predictable. The Outer Space Treaty was written and signed at a time when going to those “islands” and claiming territory was mostly theoretical. Almost all of the signing nations had no space program to speak of so they were giving up nothing.
Now that the technology has advanced enough to make the theoretical practical, and has spread to more than just the US and Russia (the nation formerly known as USSR), that treaty has a bit less relevance. When the time comes to actually settle these places, the treaty will either be reinterpreted or just plain ignored.
U2
“Seconds”
https://youtu.be/XSl0W-NsL98
3:10
So, if the Chinese get to Mars first, they will prevent anyone else from landing? Will this involve the use of force? Could they claim the entire planet with one base?
I admire their perspective….their passion-their HUNGER– for all things space. Outside of we happy few…no one here cares about space. The China Olympics still resonates in my mind. As Bill Maher said…they are a serious people…not to mentioned disciplined. A Constitutional Democratic Republic demands morality where free expression is allowed…and the author of the Three Body Problem said they’d collapse if they became as we are now. AMERICA, get it together….or China deserves its place in this new ocean….as it is our treasure fleet that now burns.
Roughly 90 million hard-core, fanatical, chinese communist true-believer, statist-apparatchik’s, need to GO.
All the way.
Sooner or later.
One way, or another.
Aliens (1986)
“The Only Way To Be Sure”
https://youtu.be/nnHmUk_J6xQ
2:06
Fury [2014]
“He’s here to kill you!”
https://youtu.be/fz_kzAx5it4
2:04
I don’t find this Chinese attitude amusing in the least.
I agree. Before I read your response, I was torqued that someone – even a “journalist” – would describe it as such. It is not the least bit amusing and certainly not from the Chinese perspective.
It’s also not the least bit surprising. This should be an obvious analogy to anyone who is paying any sort of attention. Whatever happened to that “Asia Pivot”, anyway?
On the bright side, it is far, far more aspirational than descriptive. Anyone who lands on Luna, let alone Mars, and claims the entire thing – be it for the CCP or SpaceX – is an idiot who will be roundly mocked. One can only claim what one can hold. While we’re still landing in tin cans, claims are worthless when someone with a .22 pistol can kill your entire base by pressure breach (even if it does send him flying off in the other direction).
Now I’m curious: Laying prone on Luna’s surface, how much friction is there? Can one fire a .22 pistol without sliding? A .45? A rifle?
Scott Lowther unearthed some documents about guns for astronauts at up-ship.com..’musings of a weapon oriented mind or something. Soyuz had an over-under rifle/shotgun….but now they have clip-fed Makarov-Tokarev handguns. All cosmonauts are armed. They even made a laser pistol.