China's Space Program News Thread

[Richard Santos]

Russia’s previous value to multilateral space programs had been a fleet of relatively efficient Soviet bequeathed space launchers and the soyuz capsule. Both of which have been matched and then surpassed by NASA, Elon Musk, and the Chinese space agency. Russia is not in any financial shape to regain lost ground.

So Russia parting ways with the US in multilateral space program is a complete bluff. Russia has no realistic financial capacity to sustain a major independent space program.

US wants to continue to enroll Russia in any futurism major multilateral space initiative in order to isolate china, not because russians hardware and skill can continue to be worth the trouble for NASA to use. The US no longer respect russian space capability in any way, so naturally would not been keen to offer russia any good terms for keeping russia onboard.

Hence russia is looking to the MOU with china as a leverage, not to improve her own value as a partner to NASA, but to exploit US fixation on isolating china to get more out of NASA.

In the end, russia has little to offer either to the US or to China. but it probably prefer to stay in collaboration with the US, mainly because collaboration with the US reduce US incentive to squeeze Russia geopolitically. collaboration with china realky doesn’t get russia anything because china is unlikely to share the lime light if the collaboration succeeds, and china would be too busy dealing with the US to squeeze russia.

The US has a stronger hand than china in dealing with russia in the area of space cooperation. but the US could easily overplay her hand.

if you look at the history of US Russian relationship since the end of the Cold War, you could see the US had always held a immensely stronger hand than Russia. But despite the strength of American hand, America always greatly overplayed her hand, thus allowing Russia to partially regain The ground she lost at the conclusion of the cold war

 

[ougoah]

The question was should Russia and China invite/allow India to join where members expressed it would be impossible and what would India bring to the table... not Russia. Russia is developing some neat nuclear thermal engines and let's wait and see how Angara goes. Engines are done I believe? Plus more launch sites performing ops in parallel with China could speed up whatever partner project demands.

India brings little in fact probably a drain as they would potentially be there just to sabotage. Extra funding perhaps but it's doubtful India would be genuine in any cooperative engagement with China as both nations seem to have diverging political trends.

 

[weig2000]

An India perspective on joining the proposed China-Russia Lunar Research Station pogram.

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[Richard Santos]

India would not be there to sabotage. India could not supply any thing that is critical. It is improbable China will to tolerate any terms of collaborate that leaves room for India to otherwise sabotage, for example, having veto power over administrative, logistic or technical decisions.

But for India to participate would be a statement of fuck you from India to the US. India is in no position to make such a statement now or in the foreseeable future. While India may resent being treated high handedly and transactionally by the US, India fears anything China gains in the long run must be India’s loss.

 

[Richard Santos]

An India perspective on joining the proposed China-Russia Lunar Research Station pogram.

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That is not India’s perspective. That is one Indian’s perspective.

 

[weig2000]

That is not India’s perspective. That is one Indian’s perspective.

You're right. I meant to say "An Indian perspective ..."

 

[weig2000]

In any case, I doubt India would seek to join the joint China-Russia program given the state of relationship between India and China and India's perception that it is a strategic competitor with China in every front. China would probably be receptive to India joining the program, not so much to look for contribution either financially or technically; it would be mostly political and diplomatic.

 

[ougoah]

India would not be there to sabotage. India could not supply any thing that is critical. It is improbable China will to tolerate any terms of collaborate that leaves room for India to otherwise sabotage, for example, having veto power over administrative, logistic or technical decisions.

But for India to participate would be a statement of fuck you from India to the US. India is in no position to make such a statement now or in the foreseeable future. While India may resent being treated high handedly and transactionally by the US, India fears anything China gains in the long run must be India’s loss.

I was referring to administrative sabotage and potentially leaking information/details to outside parties. India has no piece of space tech that approaches China or Russia but as a genuine partner, they could provide funding which is always good and they could provide manpower/talents which they no doubt have. On the flip side there they would have such a learning opportunity I doubt either Russia or China would be inclined to provide unless the funding help is commensurate with opportunity.

Indian participation (hypothetical of an impossible, never going to happen thing in the next few decades) is not necessarily a fuck you to the US. There are plenty of reasons for the US to encourage such a thing depending on how much influence and leverage they have over Indian elites and politics.

India does indeed consider any gain/progress China makes is at their loss because they see China as their number 1/2 adversary tied with Pakistan but Pakistan is a lower existential threat (in case of actual war). Therefore any gain your main enemy makes of course puts you at a greater gap. The chauvinistic Hindutva bhakts despise this, ignore, deny, self-delude, re-interpret, and dismiss all this, depending on the individual. Their state is thoroughly incompetent and wouldn't know how to even chase its own tail effectively. So there are layers of how and why India is not a fitting partner on any important cooperation because of government incompetence and an almost homogenous intolerance and hatred for anything China.

 

[Richard Santos]

Having had much contact with the Indian diaspora, I can say there is no homogenous intolerance or hatred for anything chinese. Amongst the particularly stridently nationalistic, there is a sense that India and China is locked in a zero sum game and China is the more ruthless, cohesive and disciplined player, therefore india must seize any opportunity to avoid falling behind. But amongst much of the educated class, there is respect and admiration of Chinese accomplishment, and jealousy. Although by no means a sense of inferiority.

In many ways, Indians, like the Chinese, tend to take a longer view than is prevalent amongst Americans. But uncontrolled media makes it more attractive for the politically opportunistic in the Indian ruling class to appeal to the rash, loud, easily excitable, here thinking and emotionally impulsive elements that is present in any society, and allow such appeal to drive action and policy beyond what might be considered prudent boundaries. The political opinion in India feels india has room to maneuver in a world where the US and China are antagonistic because US can give india a lot, and in the long run the US needs India at least as much as India needs the US.

There are opinions in India that says allying with the US against China is nonetheless dangerous, because the US can be fickle and transactional in how it treats India. If one day another serious threat to US hegemony arose elsewhere, the US may decide an rapprochement with China is in its better interest, so leaving an india that had been hostile to China on America’s behalf out in the cold. But prevailing opinion in India seem to attribute china’s faster growth over the last 4 decades to China having received a lot from the US as a result of China siding with the US during the last decade of the Cold War. Therefore just as China could bootstrap herself up during the last 40myears by being an de facto American ally during an US - USSR confrontation, so india could bootstrap herself up by being an American ally during an US - China confrontation.

 

[ougoah]

Having had much contact with the Indian diaspora, I can say there is no homogenous intolerance or hatred for anything chinese. Amongst the particularly stridently nationalistic, there is a sense of jealousy, and a sense that India and China is locked in a zero sum game and China is the more ruthless, cohesive and disciplined player, therefore india must seize any opportunity to avoid falling behind. But amongst much of the educated class, there is respect and admiration of Chinese accomplishment, although by no means a sense of inferiority.

In many ways, Indian, like the Chinese, tend to take a longer view than is prevalent amongst Americans. But uncontrolled media makes it more attractive for the politically opportunistic in the Indian ruling class to appeal to the rash, loud, easily excitable, and emotionally impulsive elements that is present in any society.

It's strange. I too have quite a lot of contact with Indian diaspora living in a western nation and my experience isn't that.

Amongst the chauvinistic ones, there is indeed a lot of underlying jealousy masked by contempt and a desire to dismiss anything Chinese. "Chinki maal copy paste junk" and all that. These types of characters make up at least half, some hide it better than others. The rest are almost entirely of typical neo-liberal mindset while strangely less critical and willing to scrutinise the Indian side of politics. Maybe they do but there is definitely a lot more cohesiveness than with Chinese diaspora and with Chinese people in general.

Modi has around 70% support. Hindutva makes up a hell of a lot greater a slice of India's population than ardent Chinese chauvinist equivalents. Chinese diaspora is almost overwhelming apolitical with equal numbers who have love/hatred for CPC.

Maybe there are just a lot more Indian fake news, IT cell brigades, trolls around and loud chauvinists who skew the representation online but there is far more homogenous intolerance for anything Chinese. At least there is effort to raise "awareness" on evil China in India. There is not a day that goes by on Indian media where China isn't a topic. Back when the confrontation was at its peak, China had a few media pieces on military exercises in the region and certainly also talked a lot about India but Indian media went to Pluto and back with daily panels interviews with "experts". If China put out 10 pieces, India put out 100. There is definitely a greater intolerance from one side and greater effort to unify people against the other through verbal/ information means. China isn't exactly quite as concerned with India for many reasons.

When I mean intolerance and hatred for anything Chinese, I'm not only talking about products... which btw India has little to no choice over in the short to medium term because... economics 101. Joining China in any important project is certainly going to meet more opposition from Indians than it would from Chinese (as intense as that would also be).

I have regularly encountered "fair minded" lol Indians who absolutely cannot stand China being talked about in ANY sort of positivity. It's almost illegal to and any discussion that comes up where "oh China has done well here with this" is always met with "no way they're awful and that's all stolen!/copied!/fake propaganda!" No Chinese person ever be bothered passionately opposing any conversation that includes India in a positive light. They just don't know or don't care enough about it. Maybe a chauvinist/ pro China person would only if that discussion also involved China but if it's just "India has pretty good space capabilities" no Chinese person would feel the need to spread total lies and unfounded nonsense about how India is evil and ought to be feared while also put down.