How do we see the world? Do we see it as it really is, or how do we think we see it? The eternal dilemma arises, the Schopenhauer-like dichotomy between will and representation, the subjective filter of a gaze that instead hides an objective reality. It is valid for everything: also for geopolitics. And especially for the Geopolitics of Space.
China, with the landing of the Zhurong rover (ie “Star of Fire”, from the ancient Chinese name of Mars), has become the third nation in the world to conduct its own vehicle on the surface of the Red Planet, literally forging ahead. The Tianwen-1 mission (which in Mandarin means “celestial questions”) took less than six years to go from the design phase, which began in 2014, to the actual launch, dating back to July 23, 2020. A fairly smooth path, which was also able to benefit from the evidence (including problems and possible weaknesses) made available by the Western counterparts. For an immediate comparison, think that the ExoMars mission instead took a good three decades to pass from the mathematical design models to the launch pad.
What does this all mean? It means that a new race to Space has undeniably opened (and not from today), a celestial domain that the Celestial Empire of Peking would like / want to colonize. With a goal far beyond the significant scientific advancement. Space exploration represents in fact one of the most shining examples of dual-use technologies, where the application effects are immediate and intercept both the civil sector (think of telecommunications) and above all the corporate and military one.
In this regard, on the occasion of the recent launch of the first module of the nascent Chinese Orbital Space Station, President Xi Jimping sent a message to the mission group, encouraging them to “carry on with conviction and enthusiasm the spirit of the two bombs and the satellite“. With explicit reference, therefore, to the route outlined and traced in the 60s and 70s of the last century by the Communist Party, to ensure – ipse dixit – the safety of the young People’s Republic: or to test a nuclear device, place it on board a ICBM and launch a first satellite into orbit.
All objectives fully achieved. And certainly not for the benefit of our West, apparently blind, compliant and wait-and-see in the face of the galloping advance of the Dragon, hungry for knowledge and for brains largely looted in Europe.
Result? The images and news of these days, complete with feared dangers due to the re-entry of large debris into the atmosphere, have as if by magic lit the flame of awareness, showing us how much China exists and knows how to do. Moreover, it being far from unrealistic to think of the first walk on the Moon of a “Taikonaut” as early as 2030.
“The biggest obstacle that Western politics and diplomacy encounter in facing the Beijing space program is that it is not known exactly what China wants to do.”Said Mark Hilborne, Defense Expert at King’s College London, in a recent article in the Financial Times. What really worries is therefore not the Moon, but in this case the finger covering it, because it is precisely in the finger (on the trigger) that the potential hostile uses of Sinic space conquests are hidden.
The hope is that the West, victim among other things of the pandemic and pandemonium of Covid-19 (a virus, it should always be remembered, of Chinese origin) will finally be able to awaken from the numbness of the senses and reason, reacting on the level of primates and the scientific and technological quality that still belong to us.
That is, looking at geopolitics with new eyes, more cautious, aware and attentive. As Albert Einstein asserted in his 1931 essay entitled “The world as I see it”: “all crises bring progress. Creativity arises from anguish just as day arises from dark night. It is in the crisis that inventiveness, discovery and great strategies are born. […] There is no merit without crisis. It is in the crisis that we can really show our best”.
And in fact we learn from crises and difficulties. Always. Giving positive reactions, ideas and that precious awareness, the result not of the aggressiveness of the force, but of the optimism of the will.