Space launch will 'overcome U.S. wall'

Space launch will 'overcome U.S. wall'

BEIJING (AP): China's successful test of a spacecraft for manned flight had major military implications, proving that Beijing has mastered technology that could enable it to overcome U.S. anti-missile defenses, a Chinese military expert was quoted as saying on Monday.

Song Yichang told the state-run China Business Times that the same low-power propulsion technology used to adjust a spacecraft's orbit in flight could also be used to alter the path of offensive missiles, helping them evade proposed U.S. anti- missile defenses known as TMD and NMD.

China's development of low-momentum rocket propulsion "is equivalent to having a trump card to counter TMD and NMD," the newspaper said. "We can use this technology to change trajectories in flight, making missiles do a little dance and evade opponents' attacks."

TMD, shorthand for Theater Missile Defense, and NMD, or National Missile Defense, would shoot down incoming missiles.

U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration, with the support of Congress, is developing a limited national missile defense that could be deployed as early as 2005. It also is carrying out research with Japan on a regional theater missile defense.

China is vehemently opposed to both systems, saying they could spark a costly and dangerous arms race. It also fears TMD technology could be passed to Taiwan, allowing the island that Beijing regards as a renegade province to defend itself against Chinese missiles.

The China Business Times report was rare official confirmation that China is interested in using technology -- not just diplomatic pressure -- to combat the proposed anti-missile systems.

"With low-power space rocket technology, it will be hard for the opposite side to control the cost and difficulty of defending against Chinese missiles," the newspaper said. "Even though the opposite side has TMD, it will have to sit down and negotiate with you."

Song, the military expert, said the successful weekend flight of the Shenzhou capsule "indicates that our country has grasped the trump card to restrain TMD," the newspaper said.

It did not clearly explain whether or how information from Shenzhou's flight could be used to make defense-evading Chinese missiles. But it said a manned space flight could provide "a large amount of practical data" on low-power rocket propulsion technology.

It added that testing this technology on the ground was very difficult, in part because of the force of gravity.

The successful completion of Shenzhou's unmanned test flight, a breakthrough for China's secretive space program, remained top news Monday in many national newspapers.

China is striving to become the third country, after the United States and the former Soviet Union, to put human beings into outer space.

Shenzhou was launched by a new model of China's Long March rocket at 6:30 a.m. Saturday at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China's Gansu province, orbited Earth 14 times and landed as planned in Inner Mongolia in north China at 3:41 a.m. Sunday, state media reported.

More unmanned flights are expected before China launches a craft carrying astronauts -- or "taikonauts" as they are known here, from the Chinese word for space.