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When it comes to the escalating rivalry between the United States and China, the sky is by no means the limit.
As countries vie for economic, technological, geopolitical, and even ideological supremacy on Earth, space has become a natural extension — and a crucial frontier — in their great power competition.
Given the dual-use nature of space technologies, what is at stake extends far beyond just scientific and global standing. In addition to national defense, a large part of our life on Earth – from digital communications to navigation – depends on satellites in space.
After the demise of the Soviet Union’s space program, the United States enjoyed an unparalleled leadership period in space. But in recent years, American observers and politicians have warned that American hegemony could soon be challenged by China’s rapidly growing space capabilities.
This concern has only deepened with a series of significant and notable Chinese achievements: in 2019, it became the first country to land on the far side of the moon; Last year, it successfully put the last BeiDou satellite into orbit, paving the way for the US Global Positioning System (GPS) challenge; And last month, it became the only country after the United States to put a working rover on Mars.
This particular breakthrough prompted the new NASA administrator, Bill Nelson, to warn against American complacency in the face of China’s space ambitions. At a House hearing last month, he uploaded a photo taken by the Chinese Mars rover, calling China a “highly aggressive competitor,” and lobbied Congress to fund NASA’s plans to return humans to the Moon.
Despite the progress made by China’s space technology, it still lags behind the United States. But China’s space program is replete with political and critical support from the ruling Communist Party, whose success is a key measure of its willful prestige and domestic legitimacy.
Last week, the competition between the United States and China in space entered a new phase when three Chinese astronauts arrived at the three-month-long space station that has been under construction in the country. The only other space station in orbit is the International Space Station (ISS), a US-led collaboration with Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada.
Over the past 23 years, more than 200 astronauts from 19 countries have visited the International Space Station – excluding China. Since 2011, NASA has been effectively banned from cooperating with China, after Congress passed the Wolf Amendment due to espionage concerns, and that exclusion has prompted, at least in part, Beijing to build its own space station, Tiangong, which is expected to be so. Complete by the end of next year – two years before the International Space Station is scheduled to be withdrawn from service in 2024. If the United States and its international partners do not decide to extend the operational life of the International Space Station, China’s Tiangong space station may soon become the only manned forward station in orbit – forbidden NASA astronauts are required to join it under US law.
While the International Space Station was primarily a US-Russian project born out of the ashes of the Cold War, China’s Tiangong is being built amid talks about a new Cold War. It is likely that in the coming years, alliances in space will increasingly reflect geopolitical lines on Earth.
Already, Chinese space officials have made it clear that they would like to welcome foreign astronauts aboard its space station upon completion. China is also collaborating with Russia to build a joint research station on the south pole of the Moon by 2035 – a facility that will be open to international participation, and at the same time, the United States is building its own international alliance to establish basic principles of security and safety. Responsible lunar explorations. The Artemis Accords, released by NASA in May last year, were signed by 12 countries, including the United States and key allies such as Britain, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea.
Neither China nor Russia signed.
today’s picture
Relive ‘red’ memories: A group of visitors dressed in Chinese Red Army uniforms visit the Chinese Revolutionary Museum in Hongan on Sunday. Hong’an, a former revolutionary base of the ruling Communist Party, is one of the so-called “red sites” that surged in popularity in the run-up to the party’s centenary on July 1.
Australia moves wine spit with China to WTO
Australia is raising its trade battle with China to a higher level.
The country said this weekend that it had lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization over Beijing’s decision to impose hefty duties on Australian wine.
While Australian trade and agriculture ministers said the country “remains open to direct engagement with China to resolve this issue,” they added in a statement on Saturday that the government “will continue to vigorously defend the interests of Australian winemakers”.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s not really clear that complaining will get Australia what it wants. These disputes can take months to resolve, and it has often been difficult, if not impossible, to implement previous WTO decisions.
In December, Australia asked the World Trade Organization to review China’s tariffs on Australian barley, which are still under review.
But the wine fee – which ranges from 116% to 218% – is clearly causing enormous pain to the country’s winemakers. China is its biggest export market, and some winemakers have already bemoaned CNN Business at the hundreds of thousands of bottles piling up on pallets in their warehouses.
“It hurts us badly,” South Australian winemaker Jared White told CNN Business earlier this year, before the assignments became permanent. “We had a lot of supplies to pay for and all these orders that were due to go, so it left us in an awkward position.”
Wine makes up a very small part of what Australia trades with China. The industry accounted for less than 1% of the total value of Australia’s exports to China in 2019, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.
But as tensions persist between the two countries, the plight of Australia’s winemakers has come to symbolize the collateral damage from the escalating trade dispute.
– By Jill Desis
About Asia
A coach on Uganda’s Olympic team has tested positive for Covid-19 upon arrival in Tokyo on Saturday night, according to Japanese officials, and the United States has shipped 2.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine to Taiwan, more than three times its original pledge as an island. It is fighting the escalating outbreak and resisting Beijing’s pressure to take local vaccinations in China, meanwhile, in China, more than one billion doses of the Covid-19 vaccine have been administered as of Saturday, an amazing milestone that comes as the country launches an unparalleled vaccination campaign
Hong Kong seeks “greater integration” with mainland China, but at what cost?
On Sunday in Beijing, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she wanted to build on the city’s reputation as a global financial center through greater integration with mainland China, and thanked the Chinese government for helping restore “stability” in Hong Kong.
But many question whether that alleged stability has come at a heavy cost.
Since the passage of national security legislation in June 2020, Hong Kong has seen mass arrests of pro-democracy politicians and journalists, eroding the city’s previously high degree of independence from Beijing. It is believed to be on the verge of collapse after the newspaper’s bank accounts were frozen in accordance with the National Security Act. The move comes on the heels of a police raid on the newsroom last week, in which top editors and executives were arrested and press materials seized, and at the same time, there was an ongoing crackdown on civil liberties. On Sunday, for the first time in 18 years, Hong Kong’s Civil Human Rights Front announced it would not hold its annual protest on July 1, saying the police would likely refuse to allow them to organize the event. Taiwan, seen as a safe space for dissent against Beijing, has announced that it will remove all non-local employees from its city office. Taipei has accused the Hong Kong government of requiring its Taiwanese employees to sign a document recognizing Beijing’s claim to the autonomous island as a prerequisite for visa renewals. .
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