Jan 19, 2007

[World Affairs] China Goes Sci-Fi

Everyone seems to be talking about the news that China had fired a test missile last week that destroyed a satellite, a clear demonstration of an "asat" or anit-satellite weapon.

While the target was only an old Chinese weather satellite, the demonstration has everyone thinking pretty much the same thing - this is the kind of weapon that will be capable of destroying suspected spy satellites in order or even GPS satellites assuming China deems them to be hostile to their interests.

It's not as if there's anyone else worth targeting with asat weapons - only the US has such a large and highly developed satellite network that worth being considered as a potential military target, if needed. Thus it comes as no surprise that the US is one of the first nations to file a diplomatic protest against the missile test.

It'll be interesting to observe how the international community will respond to this particular test. It's definitely diplomatic thing ice either way and no country will really want to get caught in the middle of yet another US-China series of tense and terse negotiations.

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