China Tests Anti-Satellite Laser Weapon

schnippy writes "U.S. intelligence agencies believe that China has successfully tested an anti-satellite weapon by destroying one of their old weather satellites. The test, if confirmed, would be an order of magnitude more provocative than earlier reports of Chinese blinding lasers being. Arms Control Wonk has a good writeup on what this will mean for U.S. policy."

Comments

How is this provocative ?

[Alain Williams]

The USA already has this sort of capability ... so why is China having this procative ?

Or is it OK for the USA to have it but no one else ? I suppose it depends on who you consider the bad guys. I note that China has invaded fewer countries in the last 50 years than the USA has ... so what is the answer to the question ?

Re:How is this provocative ?

[dave420]

The same reason that Iran's nuclear ambitions are deemed provocative. Apparently only the west is allowed anything nuclear or dangerous - everyone else has no right, apparently. And even then the US has a right to everything, and the right to deny whatever it wants to anyone else. "Land of the free" needs to be updated - may I suggest "Land of the free (to dick on everyone else without the burden of a conscience pissing on your parade because the US is always good and right and never does anything bad to everyone else who are just jealous and should be grateful that the US saved everyone's ass in every war ever fought at least that's what's been drilled into everyone's head since being kids)". Pretty catchy, huh? :)

Re:How is this provocative ?

[splutty]

Yes Gulf War II was a big disaster. However, if the situation ever stabilizes the Iraqis will have a chance to guide their own lives. China's policy in Tibet is to weaken the local populice by flooding the area with Han Chinese immigrants. I suspect that most Tibetans would like to control their own future if possible but at this point they'd be glad to just not watch as their culture is destroyed in front of their eyes. I don't see that kind of cultural assassination going on in Iraq.

Sorry.. I normally try to refrain from commenting on these kind of issues, since I'm European, and will be considered someone not knowledgable enough by a lot of people. But... I can't resist this time.

The US is actually doing *exactly* that in Iraq: Do things our "democratic" way or we'll stay here and keep killing people. You'd see this if you'd actually look at things happening from a distance. The current not-yet-civil war is a direct result of the US removing the one authority figure in charge, and trying to democratize the country. I personally believe that Iraq isn't A> ready B> helped with democracy.

You can't force two peoples (in this case mainly divided along religious borders) to work together if they don't want to, and haven't in known history. This is simply an enormous mistake in thinking.

Democracy is what works for *us* (most of the time anyway), but forcing that on other people and countries should not be the way to propagate it, I think.

Feel free to disagree, but that's my (possibly biased) point of view.

Re:How is this provocative ?

[hotdiggitydawg]

Really? I don't recall in the last 5 years China saying anything about wiping another country off the map. I'm sure residents of Taiwan and Tibet would be happy to disagree wth you.

Re:How is this provocative ?

[Digital Vomit]

they just told the bit about Isreal valiantly defending there right to annex parts of other countries

How dare a nation annex land belonging to foreign invaders -- who, to this day, continue to proclaim the obliteration of that nation -- as a means of protecting itself from future attacks!

Re:How is this provocative ?

[DaFallus]

How dare a nation be taken away from one group of people and be given to another simply because we feel sorry for them! Why don't we just give France to all the descendants of American slaves while we're at it? Makes just as much sense as taking Israel away from Palestinians and giving it to holocaust survivors after WWII.

Re:short term

[pipatron]

And this is different from any other country how? Maybe they feel it's just about time for China, the largest and oldest nation on earth, to keep up with the competition?

What this will mean for U.S. policy?

[Savage-Rabbit]

I'd say that it will mean:

1. Bigger budgets for space weapons research.
2. Bigger budgets for everything else that is even remotely connected to space weapons research.
3. Bigger budgets for intelligence gathering.
4. It might take a little wind out of the war on terror due to budget reshuffling.
5. Conservative ideologists, demagogues and fanatics of all denominations will pop up on every TV channel to talk about the new red peril.
6. Left wing ideologists, demagogues and fanatics of all denominations will pop up on every TV channel to play the new red peril down.
7. If we are lucky points 5 and 6 will result in an unscheduled yet entertaining amateur boxing match on live TV.
8. Yet another rant on the O'Reilly Factor.
9. The list goes on.... and on......

Re:This is just one more piece of bad news from Ch

[dave420]

America first, dude! A dictator in the whitehouse, military running amok all over the middle east (watch this space), global warming contributions, funamentalist influence. Don't act like the US is some beacon of how a country should be run. To the rest of the west it's quite the opposite. I apologise if this sounds like an anti-US rant, but I guess it technically is, as it's countering an anti-Chinese rant by demonstrating the hypocrisy employed by many people with regard to not acknowledging their own country's short comings, and jumping on another's.

Re:This is just one more piece of bad news from Ch

[omegashenron]

Things like censorship, product safety, military issues, global warming contributions, and anything that seems enough of a problem to become a law in western countries should be forced upon the Chinese government.

Half of these things the US is guilty of:

• Censorship - Look at the things your government does eg censorship of games, trying to prevent flag burning, monitoring citizens/bloggers etc
• Product safety - Right... American companies have never tried to skimp on safety to save a dollar, SUV's anyone? Thats rich coming from the land of lawsuits.
• Military issues - Whose government is an international joke for the wars it starts?
• Global warming - The bulk of this has come from Western countries, why do you blame China? Maybe you should trade in your SUV for a bike, it may also solve America's obesity problem.
• Forcing their government what to do - They are a soverign nation, not the 51st State of the USA

Funny that we should view this as "provocative"

[golodh]

It's ironic that the US should view this as "provocative" in the light of its stated policy to achieve hegemony in space (see http://www.space.com/news/061007_bush_spacepolicy. html for the administrations statement of policy , and see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=199827&cid=163 65327 for my earlier post on the matter, which refers to US weaponisation of space http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,14493,13 45460,00.html, and the Airforce acquiring new business http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /higher_ground_040222.html)

I certainly won't claim that China wouldn't have pressed ahead with its anti-sattelite weapon if the US hadn't stated space hegemony as its policy objective, but in terms of being provocative it really seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The US space policy is confrontational if nothing else.

I'm fairly confident that the recently unveiled US space policy caused a massive "Oh yeah? We'll see about that!" response among China, Russia, India, and perhaps others too.

Re:IMHO

[amliebsch]

It's as funny as nations conducting nuclear testing on their own soil!

Wait, that wasn't really funny at all. Maybe you had to be there.