POLITICS: China Launches ‘Peaceful’ Manned Space Flight

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct 12 2005 (IPS) - China crowned a four-day meeting of its Communist party, that mapped a development blueprint for the next five years, with a display of economic strength and scientific might. It launched, Wednesday, two astronauts into space on a five-day mission-making China the third nation in the world, after Russia and the United States, to achieve such a level of space expertise.

The launch comes two years after China completed its first manned space mission with astronaut Yang Liwei on board, joining an exclusive club of space powers. That first foray into space lasted 21 hours and was conducted in an atmosphere of secrecy typical for the military-backed programme.

This time, China ”convincingly proved its first multi-manned and multi-day space flight a ‘mission possible’ and successful,” said the official Xinhua News Agency. The flight could last up to five days, and the capsule is expected to orbit the Earth 80 times.

In a sign of confidence in the planned mission, the launch date and location were announced beforehand and the launch itself broadcast live on state television. Images of astronauts Fei Junlong, 40 and Nie Haisheng, 41 in their cockpit on ‘Shenzhou 6′, waving hands and smiling at the TV camera were broadcast live to millions of Chinese television viewers.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao congratulated the astronauts on the successful launch and declared: ”We launch Shenzhou 6 out of peaceful purpose”. The statement underlines Beijing’s desire to stress the peaceful nature of its space programme and counter suspicions by the United States and Japan that it is developed for military purposes.

China’s budget for developing the Shenzhou capsule series has reached roughly 19 billion yuan (2.3 billion US dollars), or less than 10 percent of the United States’ annual spending on space programs, Pan Houren, a research follow with the Space Science and Application Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences told Xinhua News Agency.

As much as Chinese leaders hope that a leap of nationalistic pride for completing the space mission would help assuage popular discontent over social injustice and corruption, they feel there is a need to justify the expenditure.

Despite an economy that is expected to grow 9.2 percent this year, China is still home to millions of poor people. Official statistics put the number of people living in absolute poverty, or with annual per capita income of less that 668 yuan (81 dollars) at 26 million.

The launch of China’s second space mission comes on the heels of an annual Communist party meeting, which called for ”social fairness” and promised to combat the gap between the urban rich who have benefited most from China’s 20-year economic boom and its vast poor majority in the countryside.

Over the two decades of economic reforms state funding for health care and education for China’s 800 million rural dwellers has dwindled, transforming hospitals and schools into profit-driven enterprises and becoming a major source for complaints and violent unrest in the countryside.

Instead, the state has budgeted huge increases in military spending and in the military-run space programme, arguing that China needs to possess means of defence that corresponds with its status as an Asian giant.

”China will never be a superpower, but as the world’s biggest developing country with 1.3 billion people, it should have a place in aerospace development and make due contributions,” Wang Yongzhi, chief general designer of China’s Manned Space Program, was quoted saying by the state media.

Nevertheless, China hasn’t missed an opportunity to use its success in space to showcase China’s rising power. Beijing declared the nation’s first astronaut, Lt Col Yang Liwei a national hero, and has publicised ambitious plans for new developments in space.

Space walks, followed by experiments in docking are planned for the next phase of China’s space exploration. China’s Manned Space Programme Office released a statement, Wednesday, saying that if those were successful a permanent space lab would follow into orbit, with scientists and astronauts shuttling between Earth and the space station.

The only manned space station currently operational is the International Space Station (ISS), a multi-national cooperation project that includes Russia, the United States, Japan, Canada, the European Union- but not China.

A much-talked about programme for moon exploration is also in the pipeline. Last year, China inaugurated a project to collect lunar samples and this summer it opened a lunar exploration centre in Beijing.

The centre is tasked with overseeing the launch of a moon orbiter in 2007, a lunar lander in 2012 and a third satellite designed to land on the moon surface and bring back soil samples for research in 2017.

China’s rapid gains in space exploration have put pressure on other countries to race ahead with their own programmes for space launches and moon probes.

India and Brazil have both unveiled ambitious plans for space exploration. Japan has been given new impetus to revisit its battered space programme. Even the Untied States has begun talking about sending a manned mission to Mars.