Topic: Peaceful Use of Outer Space
Country: China
Delegate Name: Parker Hammon
School: Forest Hills Central High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All China position papers GLIMUN 2010 committees
Space has become a bit of a political quagmire. The information around China's space program in terms of how it is viewed by the rest of the world varies from nothing but peaceful means to at sometime in the future, forming a security grid around the country and potentially placing a nuclear warhead in space. The latter, rest assured is not true. In fact China has consistently voted yes in every UN vote ever taken on the topic of not putting weapons in space.
The goal of the Chinese space program is short and sweet to land a man on the moon. Nationalism is the driving force behind all that we hope to achieve. By 2013 China would like to land a man on the moon and by 2020 is looking to have sent its first probe to Mars. That is far less threatening then a network of satellites that was put in space with the intent of shutting down the whole worlds communications networks.
China feels the real matter at hand is preventing a space arms race between The United States, Russia, India, Japan, The Koreas and admittedly China who would feel threatened if something started to happen. Countries are bound to make wild accusations and are entitled to feel paranoid, this could be a scary thing. Oddly enough The United States has consistently voted no in strengthening the current space laws feeling they are "adequate enough." This seems like an excuse to expose loopholes. As mentioned above, China is in the process of weaving a small network of satellites around the planet with the hopes of strengthening global communication abilities. Some countries are looking upon this with scorn as a sort of prequisite to an electrical attack using an EMP weapon. If this is true then both Russia, and the United States as well as potentially India should all be feared. The size of America and Russia's satellite networks is roughly twice the size of China's.
All feelings put aside, the real way to solve this problem is with Nuclear Deterrence. The cosmos will never be safe knowing that from any point in the world any country can be obliterated with the press of a button and there is no way to stop it. In order to safely move into the future, weapons from the past must be eliminated. With the United States and Russia hopefully signing the START treating, there has been progress. But until we can get everyone on board, the final frontier will be a limitless resource for destruction.
The Netherlands, Burkina Faso, Iran, and many other non nuclear weapon wielding countries should feel safe with the ideas of China. Even countries with nuclear weapons such as India, Pakistan and other economic powers like South Korea and Mexico do not want the possibility of a potential nuclear war because they know they could not win. Countries apposed are the countries who have large space programs that could potentially serve another purpose, The United States and North Korea come immediately to mind. Russia should stay on the fence and Japan may feel like they are being stifled but in the best interest of the world and the future, they should see the greater good and look at expanding territories peacefully.
