Building Chinese Relations through Space Exploration
Forming strong relations with China is in my mind the most essential task for American Foreign policy over the course of the next fifty years. It may be difficult for America to do that seeing as we clash on many different affairs politically, economically, and socially; however this does not mean that we should not continue to build bridges. Space exploration is a field that can propel our people into the next era of human evolution, and as the two strongest powers in the world the US and China should lead the people of humanity into the dawn of human interplanetary travel. Yet even on this front we are pushing the Chinese away! The US, Canadian, Russian, Japanese and European Space Agencies all have together taken a unified first step forwards by creating and maintaining the International Space Station, this monumental achievement of international cooperation is a reassuring sign that even the US and Russia can come together to achieve a common goal. Yet when China requested to join the world on the ISS the US, who is the authoritative voice of the ISS, denied their appeal citing human right violations. China then, being the growing global superpower that it is looked inward, as it has done so many times in the past and essentially said “We don’t need you then, we can do this on our own.” and continued on to become the third country in human history to put a man in space and are now working on their own independent space station.
The political downsides are miniscule in comparison to the benefits of such an alliance not only would it help to provide Chinese support for many of NASA’s goals such as a return to the moon or for interplanetary travel to Mars, additional funding for the ISS and to simply create another forum for discussion and conceptual theory with the brilliant Chinese STEM population. As well as add another ally in the field instead of creating a powerful rival but more importantly the US would improve political relations with China as well as draw the Chinese further away from needing the aid of the seemingly anti-western Russians. Creating a stronger relationship with the Chinese is also has secondary effects of possibly repelling the Russian influence on Chinese development. Though space exploration is certainly not the only avenue that should be pursued when dealing with China it is a relatively safe way to gain Chinese trust and lay the building blocks for future cooperation.
China is still a growing country, of course they now are forced to endure human rights violations just as America had itself done less than one hundred years ago. Is not the current and temporary state of Chinese human rights so intolerable by the United States that we should risk pushing even further away the country who will become one of the most powerful countries in human history for potentially the next few centuries? The United States government needs to seriously reevaluate its view of the world and in particular get a little more clarity on the development process that nations follow, no matter their political identity when becoming a fully modernized country. As powerful as the United States has become, in outliving the USSR and now having watched the exponential growth of the PRC to doubt that China does not have the ability to become a perfectly legitimate associate to NASA is simply unbelievable. If the US can become strong partners with China now we can help to guide their development in ways which we prefer in the future.
Michael Johnson
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