Inside the Asylum

The Chinese believe that militarization of space would be a bad thing. The People's Liberation Army Air Force Commander Xu Qiliang says that it is "a threat to the mankind." So how does this influence China's position on militarization?

"Only power could protect peace... As the air force of a peace-loving country, we must forge our swords and shields in order to protect peace." [He pledged that] China will develop an air force with integrated capabilities for both offensive and defensive operations in space as well as in air.

Hmmm. Well, it's kind of interesting that he should make reference to swords and shields, as there is a Chinese expression "mao(2nd tone) dun (4th tone)" which literally translates and "spear and shield", but which actually means "contradictory." Is this a maodun? Perhaps, perhaps not. It certainly reminds me of Tacitus' "let those who wish for peace first prepare for war."

The reason "spear and shield" means "contradictory" is because of an ancient Chinese story. There was an arms merchant touting his wares in a market-place, and he loudly proclaimed that his spears were so sharp that they could penetrate any armor, and as he promoted his shields he declared that they were so strong they could withstand any weapon. This caused a local wit to ask, "so what would happen if I used one of your spears against one of your shields? Huh?"

The PLA Daily website doesn't allow you to link directly to a story. If you want to read the whole thing, follow the link and look for the story called "China's PLA eyes future in space, air: air force commander." It was posted on November 2nd.

The director of the Senegalese News Agency, Mamadou Koume, is in Beijing at the moment. He had some interesting things to say. In particular, this really struck me:

"In Africa, we have always cooperated with the West. We have not progressed much. We have received aid from the West and donations from International financial institutions, which was always accompanied by many conditionality and diktats, whereas China has decided to take her own route," Koume told Xinhua.

There's this too:

The West-controlled media "say bad things about China. I think some of them are driven by jealousy. This is because China has taken the first position and is very dynamic in her relations particularly with the African continent. The West is feeling jealousy because China has come to compete with them in Africa. And we, the African, feel like the forms of cooperation that is being done by the Chinese, will give us a lot of autonomy," Koume said.

The first thing to note is that there's no exaggeration in the statement that China is competing with the West for influence in Africa, and the sentiment expressed here that China is winning is entirely accurate. China now has more influence across the continent than any other nation or international organization. As Koume points out, many African countries love Chinese "aid" because it comes without preconditions. You want to spend it on a palace for the king (I mean "president") then you just go right ahead. A few crates of AK-47s? Heck, we'll sell 'em to you at a discount. That's the cynical western perspective (which has some validity).

Now let's look at it from another point of view. Koume is absolutely correct when he says that African cooperation with the West has done little for Africa. The West has poured billions of dollars into Africa with little to show for it. Doesn't that tend to suggest that the Western model of aid is fundamentally flawed? Western paternalism hasn't always been very useful either ... just consider malaria and the West's reluctance to let them use bucket-loads of DDT, even with the full knowledge that it would save far more lives and prevent far more suffering than any side-effects of the DDT itself. No, you can't use DDT because that would be a Bad Thing, and we can't let you do that! Of course it doesn't mean that Chinese aid is going to do any better, but it does mean that China is going to do a lot better in the new Great Game that's shaping up in Africa.

The website failed for about a day when Blogsome had some issues. Since then, reader statistics haven't been working properly. As a result, I have no idea how many people are actually reading this. I find myself surprisingly less motivated to write without the knowledge that someone is actually reading. Well, thanks for reading, if anyone is out there!

Conspiracy theorists' have been trying to disprove the moon landings for years. Now NASA responds (sort of) by releasing a whole bunch of cool satellite images that show the landers, tracks, flags, instruments etc. that they left behind.

Of course this wouldn't be necessary if NASA had actually done anything decent by now. Trips to the moon should be old-hat by now, not ancient history. I remember when I was young, maybe about 13, I looked out my window at the moon. I had a yearning sadness as I stared at it, knowing that I'd probably never get to go there (or anywhere else in space.) I can't tell you how much more sad I would have felt if you'd told me that in the next three decades, no human would have done so much as leave Earth orbit. I mean, what the heck have we been mucking around at? Where is the moon base? Where are the mining stations in the asteroid belt? Where are the orbital solar power stations? Where is the 2001: A Space Odyssey space station? All we've got is an almost finished rather pathetic little international space station that they're already talking about abandoning. We've landed a few feeble things on Mars. Oh yes, and a few probes to different parts of the Solar System. Probes ... hmmm. I think a few properly applied probes to politicians and NASA bureaucrats might have led to a little more of where we should be, and a little less of, "have we accomplished so little in so many years?"