Second Thoughts

Aviation Week & Space Technology
May 12, 2008

China's leaders miscalculated the international reaction to the country's antisatellite (Asat) weapon test last year, and likely regret that they let their research-and-development bureaucracy carry it out, says a top U.S. expert on the Chinese space program.

"The Chinese took very careful aim and shot themselves in the foot with that test," says Joan Johnson-Freese, chairman of the National Security Decision-Making Dept. at the US Naval War College. "I think they are now recognizing that the international condemnation due them was actually moderated."

Testifying before the Senate Commerce space, aeronautics and related sciences subcommittee, Johnson-Freese said it is impossible to know exactly what motivated the test, gien the layers of Chinese government secrecy. But she says an emerging consensus among China-watchers holds that it wa the logical outcome of an Asat-weapon development program started in response to the U.S. program that tested an air-launched satellite interceptor against a defunct weather satellite in the mid-80s.

Military research and development is heavily "bureaucratized" and "very stovepiped," Johnson-Freese says, emphasizing that she is speaking for herself and not her government employers. "The engineers who were in charge of that technology development program put it forward as 'it's time to test," she says.

"I think they severely underestimated international response. I think they now regret underestimating that response."

Once the outcry started, government authorities there canceled a planned meeting in China on space-debris mitigation because they didn't want to face the "harsh" condemnation they expected and felt they deserved, Johson-Freese says, suggesting "they are now deeply regretting the situation that they brought on themselves."

A big element of that situation is the ammunition they have given to their military counterparts in the U.S. and elsewhere, who point to the test as evidence of China's aggressive military-space policies.

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DOn't know if US would consider their "shooting" down saterlite recently was an response to China's test as China has it aim at US's 80 test.

are we going in circle?

I think any regret by the chicoms has to do more with the debris field they created than anything else...(i.e. international outrage)...although they may also feel some regret by giving US generals "ammo" in expanding/accelerating their own Asat and anti-Asat programs.

Of course the US "response" was directed at China...as I highly doubt the target really posed as much of a threat as they claimed to the general public.

space war here we come!!!

I wage my bet on the japanese as they can create Gundams and advance robotic like the macross.