Chinese, Europe Cooperate on Anti-US Program
Fri September 19th, 2003 11:34 MSTFrom Reuters:
BEIJING (Reuters) - China and Europe reached an agreement on Thursday to allow China to take part in Europe’s Galileo satellite program, the European Union (news - web sites) said.
Galileo is part of a broader European drive to bolster its role in space and lessen its dependence on the United States, which spends over five times more on space programs than Europe.
Galileo is a drive by Europe to create precision positioning technology that the United States cannot disable. It is redundant with the US Global Positioning System (GPS) but politically independent.
Beijing says it will help boost the development of satellites and other aviation technology.
Precision Chinese cruise missiles, for example, or accurate Cuban chemical-weapons dispensing drones.
The agreement provides for cooperation in satellite navigation, technology, industrial manufacturing, market development, frequency and certification, the EU said in a statement.
Assuring that China has access to the latest in western space and encryption technology.
“China will help Galileo become the major world infrastructure in the growing market for location services,” said Loyola de Palacio, vice president of the European Commission (news - web sites), responsible for the Galileo program.
Market? What market? The services are given away for free by the US. But the US maintains the ability to degrade or terminate services for certain areas in times of military necessity - for obvious reasons.
Galileo, a collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Union, is scheduled for start-up in 2008. It will primarily cater to civilian users, which outnumber military users 100-1.
This last sentence is a give-away. It suggests that this is an innocent commercial venture. But the 1% of military users may be hostile to the US - especially in the likely event of a confrontation over Taiwan.
Galileo shows the growing gulf in trust between the U.S. and Europe. Europe’s stated motivation is to have positioning services that are politically dependent of the United States.
GPS is built with the capability of controlling the level of service available to those without our military encryption codes: no service, degraded service (selective availability) and accurate service (its current mode). THis is to discourage adversaries (China or perhaps a terrorist with a drone) from creating precision weapon systems which take advantage of our GPS for high precision. The military results in the recent Battle of Iraq show the huge military advantage provided by precision navigation. The ability to deny this capability to an adversary is obvious. Russia, which was a true enemy of the US, operates a competing system (GLONASS).
The U.S. (and world) civilian sector is very highly dependent on GPS services, so the government will not disable or degrade civilian GPS unless faced with a terrible threat. Thus Europe wants to be able to prevent the disruption of precision navigation even when doing so is against extremely critical US security interests. This is a valid national security position for neutral and potentially hostile power, but would not be necessary for an ally.
Now, however, Europe is admitting China to the system. That China, which views the U.S. as it’s primary military opponent, might want to have a large say in such a system is hardly surprising. That Europe would allow participation in such a critical military technology by an emerging superpower, a highly nationalist and expansive dictatorship is, sadly, no longer surprising. Hypocrisy and anti-Americanism seem to dictate European decisions to an increasing degree. Never mind the trans-national progressivism that Europe pretends to support, this action is more like the early 20th century balancing of alliances between and against nations.
The US considers GPS to be a strategic military asset - in other words, an attack on our GPS system is considered a strategic attack on the United States. Will Gallileo put the US in a position where we must make a strategic attack on European assets in order to disable Chinese precision weapons? Apparently so. Certainly we will need to develop systems capable of disabling the use of Galileo in areas of conflict, such as the middle east or Asia.
It’s time for us (europeen) to get away from danger. And the danger for us today is The USA
And we are a danger, why?
I love these content-free slams at the US by Europeans who seem to hate us but can’t explain why we are dangerous to them.
The last Europeans we were dangerous to were the Serbs, and we did that at the request of the rest of Europe. Before that, the Nazi’s.
On the other hand, your friends the Chinese murdered millions of their own people; attacked the United Nations troops in Korea; constantly threaten Taiwan; regularly kill or imprison political dissidents; continue to occupy the nation of Tibet.
Let you be known by your friends.
So what’s your problem?
Mr Moore,
I (a Chinese student who accidentally see ur article and comments)’m very regret to tell you that a considerable proportion of American (including ur excellency, which i’m very sorry for ) do lack a complete picture of nowadays China. That’s a very diversed society far beyond your imagination. Some people in the coastal region may be watching CNN as u are right now while some others may still telling their offsprings the legends passed down form Tang Dynasty.
Therefore, it would not be strange that China pursues some advanced technology if she can develope manned-spaceship and join the HPG (human genome project)
Besides, your constitution confers equality on ur citizens, so should ur international policy. The cold war era has passed, so does its ideology. In the realm of science, no position is ever assured for any state.
At last, i’m hard pressed to suggest u google for some Chinese websites for a larger picture.
Regards.
Jesse Xu
By the way, i strongly recommend u to moderate ur comments when other nations are concerned.
How will u react if i post my letter the same style as urs?
P.S. Personally, i don’t believe US is a danger. To some extend, it helps to maintain some kind of balance between different nations, but i think you’d better get a good knowledge of the matter you want to comment and respect others culture, value and traditions
Mr. Xu,
I appreciate your comments. I understand that China is very complex, with a high technology society in some areas and a Maoist peasant technology in others. I have also read some Chinese political history that covered several thousand years. I have a friend who works in the high technology area, and my father has travelled through some of the country.
I believe that China and the US have both common interests and conflict. One of the conflicts involves Taiwan, the only area where I believe China’s interests are somewhat illogical.
But there are other areas of conflict. China gave the plans for nuclear weapons to the Muslim world through Pakistan, which China has long used as a strategic ally in its geopolitical competition with India. We know about the plans (which we had long suspected) because Libya turned them over to us: the blueprints for one or more nuclear weapon designs, written in Chinese. So China is a WMD proliferator which is a grave danger to the United States. Likewise, China has allowed North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, and North Korea is dangerous because its poverty may cause it to sell the weapons, and because its government is bizarre and can potentially take insane actions.
It is almost certain that China wishes to maintain a communist buffer state in North Korea. The US can accept that if the WMD threat is removed, but China has not been very helpful with regard to North Korea, even though it has the ability to force North Korea to do many things. From a humanitarian standpoint, North Korea is hell. A responsible China would replace that with a less repressive regime, just as China itself went from the slaughter of the Cultural Revolution to the less repressive state of today.
As for not writing what I did, what I wrote was true. China currently occupies Tibet and is destroying Tibetan culture. It has been quite brutal there.
If you don’t like hearing the truth, that is unfortunate. I don’t write this to cause you personal unhappiness, but because it is true.
As for equality of treatment of nations, does China treat Taiwan the same as it treats France?
The US treats other nations based on their behavior and other characteristics. China’s behavior in weapons proliferation has been anti-US, and right now the greatest danger we face is WMD proliferation - biological and nuclear weapons - and in addition to giving weapons plans to Pakistan, China has allowed a great threat to develop in North Korea.
The danger in nuclear proliferation is that terrorists could set off nuclear bombs in the United States. If that happens, I think you would see the United States become very hostile to any nation involved in proliferation, and that includes China. American citizens would demand it.
By allowing nuclear weapons to spread, China creates a situation where we can be attacked, weakening us relative to China, and not know who did it.
So if China wants to be treated as a friendly country, it needs to help on proliferation where it can: North Korea, and Iran, where China has been helping the Iranians.
It also needs to quit planning to take Taiwan by force. Taiwan is a thriving democracy, with large amounts of trade with China and the US.
Personally, if I were negotiating, I would advise China that if it cannot stop the North Koreans, South korea, Japan and Taiwan would develop nuclear weapons capabilities. China very much does not want that, so it is a good threat - especially Japan and Taiwan.
Finally, please accept my compliments on your English. It is very good.
Mr Moore,
Thank you for your comment and letter. As to ur viewpoint in the non-proliferation, i have to admit it’s logical to a certain extend, although i may not fully agree with that.
As far as my knowledge is concerned, i’m convinced that China may support North Korea in the diplomatic arena, but it is almost impossible for a nuke tech sale, for a nuclear armed North Korea would also pose a potential threat to the Northeastern Asia, and may triggle the nuclear arm race in the region by accelerating the nuclear developement of Japan and ROK. At present, China want a peaceful international environment for economic construction. Therefore, it is against our interest to proliferate nuke tech by risking to irritate its major trade partners- US EU and Japan.
By the way, i want to address i’m not a student majoring in international study but life science, which may renders my mind puerile in this regard.
Last but not the least, i’ve read ur self-introducation. U are really a man of colorful exprience.
^_^
Best Regards,
Jesse
In terms of the issues like Taiwan and Tibet, we may have different opinions. So it’s Ok to keep our own point while seeking commone ground on other feilds.
Anyway,
‘Let’s never negotiate without fear, but let’s never fear to negotiate.’
Jesse
Thanks for your comments. BTW I am schooled in physics and engineering, so I am in the same boat as you are.
Regarding North Korea, they have claimed to have one or more nuclear weapons already. We know they had the fissile material (plutonium in reactor fuel rods) to make the weapons, and if they have the material, and they have done adequate work with spherical explosives and high-speed, tightly synchronized detonators, then they have plutonium based nuclear weapons right now.
Furthermore they have uranium enrichment facilities. We don’t know if they are able to enrich uranium to weapons grade, and if so, how much they might have enriched. They have long had uranium mines.
Thus I must disagree slightly with your comments on North Korea. They already have the weapons. China is the only country that has the ability to influence their government, and so far has refused to stop the North Korean program. Hence the region is now destabilizing. The Japanese are considering developing nuclear weapons, and in the meantime are deploying anti-missile systems. Furthermore, North Korea has or will shortly have the capability of delivering nuclear weapons to the United States via ICBM, and is selling that technology to Iran.
So the proliferation issue is already a problem.
Also, while you point out that proliferation by China is against her interests, China has and continues to aid proliferators. Sometime major trade partners do not have the courage to punish their trade partners, so China is able to do this without losing trade.
If I were president, I would enforce a partial trade embargo with China until it stops doing this (with Russia and France also).
……………….
I am curious - where are you studying?
Yes, I’ve had some colorful experiences. I still do - every year my daughter and I drive to the midwest to chase severe storms and tornados.
Regards
John
John,
Glad to hear ur voice again.
Personally, i don’t believe the North Korea has any tactical or strategic nuke with de facto striking ability against US, although its missle may strike JP if it wishes to do so. As a matter of fact, if it has got the stuff, its government should have shown off their power as a warming already because north korea does not want to be a second iraq.
And in terms of the trade embargom, i have to say that no president would like to do that. Economically speaking, despite the huge trade surplus China enjoys nowadays, the Sino-US trading also provides US consumers with cheap product as well as an opportunity to upgrade its industrial structure, leaving the labor-intensive ones to China and India and advancing further in high-tech sectors. And politically, it may not help to alleviate the tension in the region. Moreover, US cannot stand the negative effect of imposing trade embargo upon 3 of the 5 permenant Security Council members for US needs their cooperation in the UN. So an embargo would only be a lose-lose situation.
At last, to answer ur questions, i’m a junior students in the faculty of life science in Fudan Univeristy, Shanghai. It’s well-known in China but i’m not sure whether u get its name in the US.
Regards,
Jesse