China Daily: Washington's militarization of space will ignite arms race
China Daily |
Updated: 2018-12-21 16:35
A space force shows that there are some in the United States who have taken Star Wars a little too much to heart, a China Daily editorial stated after US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Tuesday authorizing the Department of Defense to create a new Space Command.
Trump has been pushing to establish a US space force by 2020, believing that "space is a war-fighting domain just like the land, air, and sea". It is not, but obviously the US wants to make it one.
It runs counter to the spirit of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty — to which the US is a signatory — which declares space a demilitarized zone and the moon and other celestial bodies "the province of all mankind".
Of course that treaty, given its deficiencies, is far from enough to guarantee the peaceful use of space, as it only partially restricts military use of space. That is why countries, including China, and scientists have long sought an arms control regime for space to prevent a conflict in space and outlaw the threat or use of force against man-made objects in outer space or to countries from space.
It is the consistent stance of China and other space-capable countries that outer space should not be militarized and countries should instead work together to explore it and discover more about the Earth and the universe we live in, the editorial said.
A space force shows that there are some in the United States who have taken Star Wars a little too much to heart, a China Daily editorial stated after US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Tuesday authorizing the Department of Defense to create a new Space Command.
Trump has been pushing to establish a US space force by 2020, believing that "space is a war-fighting domain just like the land, air, and sea". It is not, but obviously the US wants to make it one.
It runs counter to the spirit of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty — to which the US is a signatory — which declares space a demilitarized zone and the moon and other celestial bodies "the province of all mankind".
Of course that treaty, given its deficiencies, is far from enough to guarantee the peaceful use of space, as it only partially restricts military use of space. That is why countries, including China, and scientists have long sought an arms control regime for space to prevent a conflict in space and outlaw the threat or use of force against man-made objects in outer space or to countries from space.
It is the consistent stance of China and other space-capable countries that outer space should not be militarized and countries should instead work together to explore it and discover more about the Earth and the universe we live in, the editorial said.
