Feb 22 2008
China and Russia protests
… yeah, my heart bleeds for them.
Apparently, China and Russia have lodged diplomatic protestations against the US for shooting down our defunct satellite. They accused us of conducting a secret weapons test…
A Chinese state newspaper, the People’s Daily, criticised Washington for hypocrisy for rejecting a treaty to ban weapons in space proposed by Russia and China and then firing a missile at the spy satellite. Washington claims it had rejected the proposed treaty as unworkable, and said it instead favoured confidence-building efforts.
“The United States will not easily abandon its military advantage based on space technology, and it is striving to expand and fully exploit this advantage,” the newspaper commentary said.
Speaking at a press conference this morning, Liu Bianca, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said, tersely: “The Chinese side is continuing to closely follow the US action which may influence the security of outer space and may harm other countries.”
His words were believed to have been carefully modulated to echo criticisms levelled at Beijing by the Bush Administration when China fired its own ground-based missile into an obsolete weather satellite in January 2007.
US defence officials say their case is different because Washington, unlike Beijing, informed the public and world leaders before firing their missile. They also have insisted the only concern driving the US decision to shoot down the satellite was that the 1,000-pound fuel tank could survive largely intact and release toxic gas.
Their protestations is especially rich since China have done numerous weapons tests in the past few years and Russia is still developing their Topol-M missile, which has the promise of evading even the most sophisticated anti-ballistic missile systems.
Do these countries really believe that we would lay down our arms and let them steal a march on us?