Shooting Down Satellites

Here's a post about Chinese doubts about the US shooting down one of its own satellites. Some quotes: "Some Chinese are not buying the U.S. explanation of why it shot down a crippled spy satellite." and "...events that U.S. readers might take at face value."

OMG, does anyone actually believe the bogus stories both governments composed? The Chinese shot theirs down as a matter of national security. It had to know if it could reduce US capabilities in the event of war. (The reality is it reduces only a little as most of the important satellites are in farther orbits, and the US has inertial systems too, not just GPS.) The US has wanted to do such a test for a long time, but faced a delicate detente with the Russians over space weaponization since 1985. The Chinese test forced their hand, or allowed a fortunate excuse, depending on your point of view. In any case it is quite impressive the US was able to prepare and execute a successful test in a matter of weeks.

What is more interesting is the after-the-fact responses. The US expressed sensible and measured alarm at the military implications, and the debris left in orbit. After the US test, the Chinese response was practically a mirror of the original US response. Unfortunately, the facts were different, and the Chinese response made little sense. For example, the US test was in low orbit and the debris would fall into the atmosphere in a matter of days and weeks, not years like the Chinese debris. Also, the US had a plausible justification, its wayward satellite would soon enter the atmosphere at an uncontrollable location, possibly threatening populated areas (ooo, I'm scared).

The actions were similar, but the handling of public relations was vastly different, showing the US advantage of many years of cold war experience.

China's Controlled Media

Here is a link to a translation of a blog describing the huge gap between Chinese and Western perceptions of the Tibet uprising.

The German woman is pretty ignorant, so I won't discuss that side much, but the Chinese author is proud and naive. He is thouroughly informed by China's state controlled press, and he believes every word. To get a sense of the bias of China's media, you need to compare the Chinese reporting to that of the West. It is usually not as strong as it is made out, but there are cases where there is manipulation or suppression. It is of course overt in this case.

Does he really believe these people are risking their lives without any legitemate grievances?

And if the situation in Tibet was as China's media portrays it, it should be to China's great advantage to expose it to the world.

But there are larger implications of a controlled press that are disturbing. First, the Chinese government has demonized Tibetan culture as part of their propaganda campaign. The blogger writes about past tribal rituals like requiring human skins as gifts, as if that justifies suppression of an entire culture. Demonization of a minority is especially sensitive in a country like Germany which has a ghastly history of that. This is tantamount to institutional racism and should be condemned more strongly than the authoritarian suppression of a semi-violent uprising.

Second, while China's rise has thus far been peaceful, there will come a time when their technology will be equal that of the West, and their industrial production will be larger. The balance of power must shift, and the issue of Taiwan, which is veiwed by China as a foreign occupation of their land, will be viewed as an attainable military objective. If the Chinese media remain state controlled, thier attitude on Taiwan would surely be aggressive. And that will likely lead to world war. They would quickly take Taiwan by force. The West would sanction and blockade. They would need to invade their neighbors for resources, etc. I do not know who would win such a war, but it is armageddon for sure.

So again, if we have to pressure China on it's authoritarianism, press freedom is a more important issue than democracy.