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Russia and China have joined forces in a major U.N. forum to oppose U.S. plans to develop new space weapons. And the move could herald a far more wide-ranging strategic cooperation between the two nations.
Russia and China have joined forces to urge the U.N. Conference on Disarmament to launch a new round of international negotiations to prevent the increased militarization of space. On June 9, the two countries issued a joint working paper calling for the reactivation of the moribund Committee on Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space that was discontinued in 1994. The appeal was delivered to the Disarmament Conference in Geneva.
Hu Xiaodi, China's veteran top negotiator, and one of its most influential policymakers on space weapons systems, told the conference, "The recent developments concerning outer space are worrisome and require more urgent efforts to start work on preventing an arms race in outer space... China and Russia stand for the negotiation, at the Disarmament Conference, of an international legal instrument prohibiting the deployment of weapons in outer space and use of force against outer space objects." Analyst Sergei Blatov writing for the Eurasia Daily Monitor of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation called the Sino-Russian initiative "an apparent strategic partnership" and added that it was "understood to be anti-Washington, due to known joint Russo-Chinese opposition to the planned U.S. National Missile Defense (NMD) program."
The initiative is not likely to get anywhere.
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