National Post
The White House says Canada has joined the U.S. and Australia in condemning China for shooting down one of its own satellites with a ground-based missile, a test that is raising fears of a new arms race in space.
'The United States believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of co-operation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area,' U.S. national security spokesman Gordon Johndroe told reporters in Washington on Thursday. 'We and other countries have expressed our concern to the Chinese.'
He named Canada and Australia as backing U.S. objections to the Chinese satellite blast, which obliterated an obsolete, 1.3-metre-wide weather beacon orbiting 800 kilometres above Earth.
Britain, Japan and South Korea are also expected to join today in an international chorus of criticism over China's test of its so-called 'satellite-killer' technology, the Washington Post is reporting.
But a Foreign Affairs spokesman in Ottawa said Thursday he would not confirm the nature of Canada's reaction to the Chinese test, adding an official response would be announced today. Spokesman Bernard Nguyen said officials needed time to gather 'appropriate information' before issuing a formal statement.
The controversy arises in the midst of a high-level Canadian trade mission to China, where federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Trade Minister David Emerson are meeting with top Chinese officials to build business ties with the Asian economic superpower.
But the missile strike in space has spotlighted China's growing role as a military superpower - and the challenge the country poses to the United States as the preeminent force in global affairs.
'China is not going to settle for an inferior position,' Wenran Jiang, director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, told CanWest News Service on Thursday.
While describing China's space shot as a 'worrisome development,' Jiang cautioned the Canadian government not to 'bluntly blame the Chinese' at a time when the U.S. and Japan - China's key Asian rival - are closely collaborating on missile technology that is promoting the 'weaponization of outer space' and provoking Beijing.
'China will not back down,' Jiang warned. 'Canada should pursue policies that stabilize the region.... We would like to see no escalation.'
The destruction of the satellite was first reported on Wednesday by Aviation Week & Space Technology, an online publication that revealed concern among U.S. intelligence officials over China's use on Jan. 11 of a 'kinetic kill vehicle launched on board a ballistic missile' to blow up the eight-year-old beacon.
The White House confirmed on Thursday the Chinese satellite was shot down last week.
Jiang said the incident heralds the emergence of a 'security dilemma situation' in Asia that will see the U.S. interpreting each Chinese advance in military capability as an 'offensive' action and Beijing countering 'this is simply a routine development' in a missile-defence race driven by the U.S. pursuit of 'Star Wars' technology.
He added Canada, as a NATO member and close U.S. ally, is in a delicate position but should be pursuing a strategy 'to make sure we don't have an arms race' with China.
U.S. analysts were echoing such concerns as news of the Chinese satellite strike spread on Thursday.
Some observers also noted the satellite's destruction will have sent thousands of pieces of debris into orbit, possibly disrupting other communication satellites.
'Obviously we have a lot to lose and really nothing to gain from allowing space to become weaponized,' Leonor Tomero, a policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, D.C., told Discovery News. 'If China testing an ASAT (anti-satellite) weapon is confirmed, then there will be an arms race in space if we allow this to happen. It's hard to tell if China is doing this as a result of U.S. policy, but we do know the current administration's position in space will do nothing to help prevent the militarization of space.'
But in December, the U.S. undersecretary for arms control and international security, Robert Joseph, warned in a Washington speech about the Bush administration's new National Space Policy that U.S. satellites and other 'space assets' are 'vulnerable to a range of threats' - including, he noted, 'anti-satellite weapons' that could 'permanently and irreversibly destroy satellites.
'Our space infrastructure could be seen as a highly lucrative target and today more actors have greater access to increasingly sophisticated technologies and capabilities that will improve their ability to interfere with U.S. space systems, services, and capabilities,' Joseph warned at the time. 'For our part, we must take all of these threats seriously because space capabilities are essential or vital to the operation of our telecommunications, transportation, electrical power, water supply, gas and oil storage and transportation systems, emergency services, banking and finance, and continuity of government services.
'And, just as the U.S. government reserves the right to protect these infrastructures and resources on land, so too do we reserve the right to protect our space assets.'
EDS: ``Today' in copy is Friday.