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China's political space
odyssey
By Xiao Xi
BEIJING -
The planned launch of China's first manned space vehicle
on Wednesday comes a day after the end of a crucial
Communist Party Central Committee plenum, the first such
autumn meeting not to have been preceded by a
preparatory summer meeting at Beidahe. The plenum
focused on last spring's battle against severe acute
respiratory syndrome (SARS), the measures to be adopted
against a recurrence of the disease this winter, and the
July 1 demonstration in Hong Kong. Hours and days were
spent weighing all possible political complications.
Little of what transpired in the plenum will leak
outside, and almost everything will disappear in the
glow of the rocket pushing the first Chinese manned
mission into space.
The Shenzhou (Holy Vessel) V
will fly just one man for just one orbit around the
Earth, but that will suffice to break almost half a
century of monopoly of space by just two countries, the
United States and Russia.
Technology-wise, China
will remain years if not decades behind the two leaders,
but politically it is a huge leap forward. A successful
launch will be a commercial boost for the Chinese
aerospace industry, which hopes to get more commercial
contracts for satellites. Furthermore, the launch will
be strategic military statement. The technology for
manned orbits is in fact the same as that of
intercontinental ballistic missiles, and China will have
proved it has reached a new, higher stage of precision,
something that has become even more important as two
neighbors, India and Japan, have started sending
missiles into space.
The former has almost
clinched a deal to purchase from Israel the airborne
radar system Falcon, the same one the US vetoed for sale
to China a couple of years back. This time the US seems
to have raised no objections to India acquiring the
Falcon.
Japan, for its part, is part of the
US-led missile defense system, and the Chinese launch
will be studied by specialists to see whether it could
pierce either the national missile defense system or the
theater missile defense (TMD) system. The TMD is
particularly important, first because it could cover
Taiwan, formally part of China but de facto independent,
and second because Japan and Taiwan are certainly easy
targets for China's short and medium-range missiles,
whose precision will be further enhanced by the new
advances of Shenzhou V.
The mission, then, is a
strong political statement, and so much the stronger as
Russia's presence in space is not keeping pace with its
past.
However, besides commercial and strategic
issues, the launch could be a symbolic turning point for
the history of China. Until the beginning of the 19th
century China was arguably the richest country on Earth,
yet it did not wish to trade with faraway countries, and
most notably it did not try to project its political
power outside its immediate area.
Some three
centuries earlier Admiral Zhen He set forth several
missions abroad comprising large fleets and as many as
10,000 crew. These fleets were far greater than the
Western flotillas, as were the individual ships compared
to their European counterparts roaming the oceans in
search of gold, spices and lands to conquer. Modern
historians still debate what was the real purpose of
Zhen He's trips. They didn't aim to conquer or to force
trade with China. It seems they only aimed at projecting
far and away the glory of China, and there are arguments
that in trading with these countries the Heavenly Empire
tried always to give more than it obtained, to affirm
its strength and generosity.
Those Chinese
travels were different from Western travels, which were
motivated by appetite for wealth and conquest. The
Chinese wanted to show off, to prove their power and
make everybody see that no one could be their match and
that they needed no one. Conversely, Europe with its
voyages started the process of accumulation of wealth
that eventually financed and led to the Industrial
Revolution.
Nowadays, even in China, it is clear
that if Zhen He had conquered, if he had brought home
more wealth than he squandered to build his fleets,
history might have been different, and perhaps today
this article might have been written in Chinese and not
in English.
So the question now is: Will the
Shenzhou project Chinese politics abroad in a fashion
Zhen He never used? And if so, how will the world react?
It is a minefield. Lack of political projection
in the long term might be risky for national politics,
but excess of projection and arrogance might be even
worse because it would raise many suspicions.
Furthermore, the present geopolitical
environment is much more complex than in the past.
Besides the much vaunted globalization there are many
new complications.
Today, millions of Chinese
nationals live outside China and even outside the Far
Eastern region. Their presence is projecting the
business interests, small and large, of the motherland.
They will seek their own personal gain, which might
coincide with the interests of China if Beijing goes on
growing economically. If it doesn't, these overseas
Chinese might siphon off billions. But even if Beijing
protects the interests of these businessmen, this action
might cause friction with other countries concerned
about their trade imbalance with China.
The
combination of new geography and a new perception of
history will cause further complications. China used to
surround itself by what nowadays we could define as
buffer states, countries linked with a variety of vassal
agreements with the Chinese rulers. Formerly, Tibet and
Xinjiang were a kind of buffer states, but now these
lands have been absorbed into China, and on their
borders there are political presences strong or wishing
to be strong, including India, Pakistan and even
Kazakhstan. None of these countries could ever become a
buffer, a vassal state. Then what can they be, as equal
relations between states are normally very difficult and
China has no history of it?
With all these
complexities and subtleties, estimating the success of
Shenzhou's political mission will be trickier than
gauging its scientific achievements.
(Copyright
2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
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