Space launch boosts China's pride

Space launch boosts China's pride

By Benjamin Kang Lim

BEIJING (Reuters): The launch of China's first unmanned
spacecraft has limited commercial and military benefits for
Beijing, but national pride and the status of President Jiang
Zemin are the biggest winners, analysts said on Monday.

"This technology will be used in commercial launches," said
Eric Li, a satellite specialist with Beijing-based consultancy
Claydon Gescher Associates.

Saturday's successful launch would "strengthen China's
position in the commercial launches of foreign satellites in the
long run", he said, adding that the Chinese commercial launch
program was solidly booked for the next 18 months.

Joan Johnson-Freese, a space expert at the Asia-Pacific Center
for Security Studies in Hawaii, noted that the Long March rocket
used to launch the spacecraft, which orbited the earth 14 times,
was not the same as rockets used commercially.

"It's purely prestige," she said.

"Their technology is very crude and very spartan in some
ways," said Johnson-Freese, author of six books on space. "If you
want to put a precision satellite in orbit, no, China is not
where you go."

In Hong Kong, shares of electronics maker China Aerospace
International Holdings Ltd were buoyed on Monday by the launch.
The listed firm's parent, China Aerospace Corp, launches
commercial satellites in China.

China's success came 42 years after the former Soviet Union
became the first nation to go into space.

But it made China only the third nation in history to launch a
vehicle capable of carrying a man into space after the former
Soviet Union and the United States.

Analysts said the display of domestic expertise also allowed
China to thumb its nose at U.S. critics who accuse it of stealing
U.S. space technology.

"It enables China to say again: 'You claim we had stolen your
technology. I don't think so. Look at what we can do on our
own'," Johnson-Freese said.

In May, a U.S. congressional report by Representative
Christopher Cox, a California Republican, alleged Chinese agents
stole U.S. space, missile and nuclear secrets.

China, which has vehemently denied the Cox report, says both
the rocket and the spacecraft used in the launch were home-grown.

A Hong Kong-based defense analyst said more resources now
would be spent on the space program, which would potentially
benefit the Chinese military.

Any significant improvements in terms of more accurate space
launches or heavier payloads would also benefit strategic missile
development in the long term, said the analyst who asked not to
be identified.

Domestically, the launch is a boost to national pride and the
standing of President Jiang, analysts said.

"It's a unifying factor, a pride factor for the Chinese
people," Johnson-Freese said. "But this does not change any of
the strategic equation."

Jiang has identified himself personally with the project by
naming the craft "Shenzhou", or "Divine Ship". That name, in
Jiang's calligraphy, appeared on the front pages of major Chinese
newspapers on Monday.

Analysts said China could carry out a manned flight within a
year, but that two to four years was more realistic. The timing
would be driven by economics.

"There is still a large technological leap to be made between
having an unmanned vehicle that is capable and manned launch
capability," Johnson-Freese said.

China has said it will conduct more unmanned test flights
before putting cosmonauts in space.

"Economic development is China's number one goal and the space
program is a cash cow right now," Johnson-Freese said. "It's a
question of money."

Robert Park, a physicist at University of Maryland, welcomed
China's space program.

"I don't see it as bad news at all," Park said.

"Human space flight has no military implications at all,
except to demonstrate that they have advanced missile capability,
but we knew that already."

"As long as they're doing that, they're not fooling around
with things that are more dangerous. Human space flight's
relatively harmless. I would be delighted to have them spending
their money that way," he said.

window: ...the display of domestic expertise also allowed China
to thumb its nose at U.S. critics who accuse it of stealing U.S.
space technology.