Snubbed by U.S., China Finds New Space Partners
BEIJING, May 23 â For years, China has chafed at efforts by the United States to exclude it from full membership in the worldâs elite space club. So lately China seems to have hit on a solution: create a new club.
Beijing is trying to position itself as a space benefactor to the developing world â the same countries, in some cases, whose natural resources China covets here on earth. The latest and most prominent example came last week when China launched a communications satellite for Nigeria, a major oil producer, in a project that serves as a tidy case study of how space has become another arena where China is trying to exert its soft power.
Not only did China design, build and launch the satellite for Nigeria, but it also provided a huge loan to help pay the bill. China has also signed a satellite contract with another big oil supplier, Venezuela. It is developing an earth observation satellite system with Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru and Thailand. And it has organized a satellite association in Asia.
âChina is starting to market and sell this technology to developing countries that need it,â said Shen Dingli, a professor in international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. Of the Nigeria deal, Mr. Shen added: âIt gives substance to Sino-African relations. Not only does China buy raw materials, but also we sell some things.â
For China, the strategy is a blend of self-interest, broader diplomacy and, from a business standpoint, an effective way to break into the satellite market. Satellites have become status symbols and technological necessities for many countries that want an ownership stake in the digital world dominated by the West, analysts say.
âThereâs clearly a sense that countries like Nigeria want to have a stronger presence in space,â said Peter J. Brown, a journalist who specializes in satellite technology and writes frequently about the satellite market in Asia. âAs you look around the map, more and more countries are moving to get satellites up.â
Chinaâs more grandiose space goals, which include building a Mars probe and, eventually, putting an astronaut on the moon, are based on an American blueprint in which space exploration enhances national prestige and advances technological development. But Beijing also is focused on competing in the $100 billion commercial satellite industry.
In recent years, China has managed to attract customers with its less expensive satellite launching services. Yet it had never demonstrated the technical expertise to compete for international contracts to build satellites.
The Nigeria deal has changed that. Chinese engineers designed and constructed the geostationary communications satellite, called the Nigcomsat-1. A state-owned aerospace company, Great Wall Industry Corporation, will monitor the satellite from a ground station in northwestern China. It will also train Nigerian engineers to operate a tracking station in Abuja, their national capital.
Last week, a day after the launching, Ahmed Rufai, the Nigerian project manager for the satellite, was exultant as he paused between appointments at his Beijing hotel. Nigeria may be rich in oil, he said, but it lacks many of the basic building blocks of a modern, information-based economy.
âWe want to be part of the digital economy,â Mr. Rufai said, noting that Africa suffers more than any other continent from the so-called digital divide. âWe are trying to diversify the economic base of the country.â
Mr. Rufai predicted that the satellite would pay for itself within seven years as Nigeria sold bandwidth to commercial users. But he also predicted major improvements for Nigeria itself: âdistance learningâ educational programs for remote rural areas; online public access to government records; a video monitoring system of remote oil pipelines to allow quicker responses to spills; and an online banking system.
Nigeria is a risky customer for any satellite manufacturer. It is consistently rated one of the most corrupt nations, and at least one Western aerospace company has become embroiled in business disputes there. âBusiness ventures with Nigeria have been difficult, to say the least,â said Roger Rusch, president of TelAstra, a satellite communications consulting firm in California.
Nigeria put the project out for bidding in April 2004. Mr. Rufai said that 21 bids had arrived from major aerospace companies but that nearly all of them failed to meet a key requirement: a significant financial package.
Mr. Rufai said the Western companies saw Nigeria as a major gamble. âTheir response was very cool,â he said of one financial institution approached about backing the deal. âThey said, âOh, Nigeria. Donât touch it.â â
China was not so cautious. With the satellite priced at roughly $300 million, the state-owned Export-Import Bank of China, or China ExIm, granted $200 million in preferential buyerâs credits to Nigeria. The bank often provides the hard currency for Chinaâs soft power aspirations: In Africa, China ExIm has handed out more than $7 billion in loans in recent years, according to one study.
âThey were the only ones who stated in concrete terms that they would be able to support the project,â Mr. Rufai said. Quality remained a concern. Last year, China suffered a major setback with the failure of the Sinosat-2. It was the most sophisticated satellite ever made in China, and it suffered a systems breakdown on its first launching. The Nigerian satellite was delayed for three months so that it could be retrofitted.
Joan Johnson-Freese, chairwoman of the Department of National Security Studies at the Naval War College, said China still trailed major aerospace companies in the quality and sophistication of its satellites, which is one reason it is marketing to developing countries. But, she added, the strategy was working on multiple levels.
âThey want to play a leadership role for developing countries that want to get into space,â Dr. Johnson-Freese said in an interview earlier this year. âItâs just such a win-win for them. They are making political connections, it helps them with oil deals and they bring in hard currency to feed back into their own program to make them even more commercially competitive.â
Satellites also are becoming vital to Beijingâs domestic development plans. In the next several years, China could launch as many as 100 satellites to help deliver television to rural areas, create a digital navigational network, facilitate scientific research and improve mapping and weather monitoring. Research centers on microsatellites have opened in Beijing, Shanghai and Harbin, and a new launching center is under construction in Hainan Province.
But Chinaâs focus on satellites has also brought suspicions, particularly from the United States, since most satellites are âdual useâ technologies, capable of civilian and military applications. Currently, China is overhauling its military in a modernization drive focused, in part, on developing the capacity to fight a âhigh techâ war.
Analysts say Chinaâs determination to develop its own equivalent to the Global Positioning System, or G.P.S., is partly because such a system would be critical for military operations if a war were to erupt over Taiwan.
Most alarmingly to Western countries, China conducted an antisatellite test in January by firing a missile into space, destroying one of its own orbiting satellites and scattering a trail of dangerous debris despite its oft-stated opposition to the use of weapons in space. Four months later, Washington is still trying to parse Chinaâs motivations, while China has offered little explanation.
Space relations between the powers were already frosty. Washington, responding to scandals over stolen technology, has tried for nearly a decade to isolate the Chinese space program through export restrictions that prohibit the use of American space technology on satellites launched in China. Washington also has prevented China from participating in the International Space Station and, in some cases, stopped Chinese scientists from attending space conferences in America.
Michael D. Griffin, NASAâs administrator, did signal a thaw in relations when he visited China last fall. But critics say the American strategy has backfired. A recent critique of the Bush administrationâs space policy blamed Washington for alienating space allies with a âgo it aloneâ philosophy. It also blamed the export restrictions for damaging American competitiveness and helping foreign competitors like China gain an advantage in the commercial market.
China, meanwhile, eyes the United States warily. Earlier this year, Eric Hagt, director of the China program for the World Security Institute, testified in Washington that Chinaâs increasing investment in space has made it feel more vulnerable at a time when the United States is advocating missile defense programs in the name of protecting against terrorist states.
China believes the United States is determined to dominate space, even as Chinaâs own national interests are increasingly tied to space, Mr. Hagt said. âThe United States needs to come to grips with the reality that China will demand more âstrategic roomâ in space,â he told the federal U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The United States is also realizing that many parts of the world are happy to give China that space. When the Nigerian satellite was launched, the blastoff was televised live to Nigeria, the Chinese news media reported. Nigerian newspapers proclaimed the satellite as a seminal moment in the countryâs efforts to modernize its economy.
Mr. Rufai, the Nigerian project manager, said he was certain that other developing countries had noticed how China had designed, built, launched and financed the satellite.
âItâs a model that people will try to replicate,â he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/w...8d61b4c64&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
BEIJING, May 23 â For years, China has chafed at efforts by the United States to exclude it from full membership in the worldâs elite space club. So lately China seems to have hit on a solution: create a new club.
Beijing is trying to position itself as a space benefactor to the developing world â the same countries, in some cases, whose natural resources China covets here on earth. The latest and most prominent example came last week when China launched a communications satellite for Nigeria, a major oil producer, in a project that serves as a tidy case study of how space has become another arena where China is trying to exert its soft power.
Not only did China design, build and launch the satellite for Nigeria, but it also provided a huge loan to help pay the bill. China has also signed a satellite contract with another big oil supplier, Venezuela. It is developing an earth observation satellite system with Bangladesh, Indonesia, Iran, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru and Thailand. And it has organized a satellite association in Asia.
âChina is starting to market and sell this technology to developing countries that need it,â said Shen Dingli, a professor in international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. Of the Nigeria deal, Mr. Shen added: âIt gives substance to Sino-African relations. Not only does China buy raw materials, but also we sell some things.â
For China, the strategy is a blend of self-interest, broader diplomacy and, from a business standpoint, an effective way to break into the satellite market. Satellites have become status symbols and technological necessities for many countries that want an ownership stake in the digital world dominated by the West, analysts say.
âThereâs clearly a sense that countries like Nigeria want to have a stronger presence in space,â said Peter J. Brown, a journalist who specializes in satellite technology and writes frequently about the satellite market in Asia. âAs you look around the map, more and more countries are moving to get satellites up.â
Chinaâs more grandiose space goals, which include building a Mars probe and, eventually, putting an astronaut on the moon, are based on an American blueprint in which space exploration enhances national prestige and advances technological development. But Beijing also is focused on competing in the $100 billion commercial satellite industry.
In recent years, China has managed to attract customers with its less expensive satellite launching services. Yet it had never demonstrated the technical expertise to compete for international contracts to build satellites.
The Nigeria deal has changed that. Chinese engineers designed and constructed the geostationary communications satellite, called the Nigcomsat-1. A state-owned aerospace company, Great Wall Industry Corporation, will monitor the satellite from a ground station in northwestern China. It will also train Nigerian engineers to operate a tracking station in Abuja, their national capital.
Last week, a day after the launching, Ahmed Rufai, the Nigerian project manager for the satellite, was exultant as he paused between appointments at his Beijing hotel. Nigeria may be rich in oil, he said, but it lacks many of the basic building blocks of a modern, information-based economy.
âWe want to be part of the digital economy,â Mr. Rufai said, noting that Africa suffers more than any other continent from the so-called digital divide. âWe are trying to diversify the economic base of the country.â
Mr. Rufai predicted that the satellite would pay for itself within seven years as Nigeria sold bandwidth to commercial users. But he also predicted major improvements for Nigeria itself: âdistance learningâ educational programs for remote rural areas; online public access to government records; a video monitoring system of remote oil pipelines to allow quicker responses to spills; and an online banking system.
Nigeria is a risky customer for any satellite manufacturer. It is consistently rated one of the most corrupt nations, and at least one Western aerospace company has become embroiled in business disputes there. âBusiness ventures with Nigeria have been difficult, to say the least,â said Roger Rusch, president of TelAstra, a satellite communications consulting firm in California.
Nigeria put the project out for bidding in April 2004. Mr. Rufai said that 21 bids had arrived from major aerospace companies but that nearly all of them failed to meet a key requirement: a significant financial package.
Mr. Rufai said the Western companies saw Nigeria as a major gamble. âTheir response was very cool,â he said of one financial institution approached about backing the deal. âThey said, âOh, Nigeria. Donât touch it.â â
China was not so cautious. With the satellite priced at roughly $300 million, the state-owned Export-Import Bank of China, or China ExIm, granted $200 million in preferential buyerâs credits to Nigeria. The bank often provides the hard currency for Chinaâs soft power aspirations: In Africa, China ExIm has handed out more than $7 billion in loans in recent years, according to one study.
âThey were the only ones who stated in concrete terms that they would be able to support the project,â Mr. Rufai said. Quality remained a concern. Last year, China suffered a major setback with the failure of the Sinosat-2. It was the most sophisticated satellite ever made in China, and it suffered a systems breakdown on its first launching. The Nigerian satellite was delayed for three months so that it could be retrofitted.
Joan Johnson-Freese, chairwoman of the Department of National Security Studies at the Naval War College, said China still trailed major aerospace companies in the quality and sophistication of its satellites, which is one reason it is marketing to developing countries. But, she added, the strategy was working on multiple levels.
âThey want to play a leadership role for developing countries that want to get into space,â Dr. Johnson-Freese said in an interview earlier this year. âItâs just such a win-win for them. They are making political connections, it helps them with oil deals and they bring in hard currency to feed back into their own program to make them even more commercially competitive.â
Satellites also are becoming vital to Beijingâs domestic development plans. In the next several years, China could launch as many as 100 satellites to help deliver television to rural areas, create a digital navigational network, facilitate scientific research and improve mapping and weather monitoring. Research centers on microsatellites have opened in Beijing, Shanghai and Harbin, and a new launching center is under construction in Hainan Province.
But Chinaâs focus on satellites has also brought suspicions, particularly from the United States, since most satellites are âdual useâ technologies, capable of civilian and military applications. Currently, China is overhauling its military in a modernization drive focused, in part, on developing the capacity to fight a âhigh techâ war.
Analysts say Chinaâs determination to develop its own equivalent to the Global Positioning System, or G.P.S., is partly because such a system would be critical for military operations if a war were to erupt over Taiwan.
Most alarmingly to Western countries, China conducted an antisatellite test in January by firing a missile into space, destroying one of its own orbiting satellites and scattering a trail of dangerous debris despite its oft-stated opposition to the use of weapons in space. Four months later, Washington is still trying to parse Chinaâs motivations, while China has offered little explanation.
Space relations between the powers were already frosty. Washington, responding to scandals over stolen technology, has tried for nearly a decade to isolate the Chinese space program through export restrictions that prohibit the use of American space technology on satellites launched in China. Washington also has prevented China from participating in the International Space Station and, in some cases, stopped Chinese scientists from attending space conferences in America.
Michael D. Griffin, NASAâs administrator, did signal a thaw in relations when he visited China last fall. But critics say the American strategy has backfired. A recent critique of the Bush administrationâs space policy blamed Washington for alienating space allies with a âgo it aloneâ philosophy. It also blamed the export restrictions for damaging American competitiveness and helping foreign competitors like China gain an advantage in the commercial market.
China, meanwhile, eyes the United States warily. Earlier this year, Eric Hagt, director of the China program for the World Security Institute, testified in Washington that Chinaâs increasing investment in space has made it feel more vulnerable at a time when the United States is advocating missile defense programs in the name of protecting against terrorist states.
China believes the United States is determined to dominate space, even as Chinaâs own national interests are increasingly tied to space, Mr. Hagt said. âThe United States needs to come to grips with the reality that China will demand more âstrategic roomâ in space,â he told the federal U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
The United States is also realizing that many parts of the world are happy to give China that space. When the Nigerian satellite was launched, the blastoff was televised live to Nigeria, the Chinese news media reported. Nigerian newspapers proclaimed the satellite as a seminal moment in the countryâs efforts to modernize its economy.
Mr. Rufai, the Nigerian project manager, said he was certain that other developing countries had noticed how China had designed, built, launched and financed the satellite.
âItâs a model that people will try to replicate,â he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/w...8d61b4c64&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
