China Doubts India's Moon Mission

Chandrayaan, India’s unmanned mission to the moon which was launched late last month, has received favourable international reaction. On Saturday, the spacecraft successfully entered the lunar orbit, where it is to spend two years scanning the moon’s surface for signs of significant minerals and also water and ice. In many ways, the country’s first flight to the moon projects the spirit of international scientific cooperation in a relatively virgin field. Of the 11 instruments it is carrying on board, three are from the European Space Agency (ESA), two from the US, and one from Bulgaria. Seen in this light, the Indian effort is a part of the shared striving for widening the frontiers of knowledge to benefit the human race. It is therefore surprising to find a contrary reaction to Chandrayaan from China. This is not an official reaction of the Chinese government or its scientific community, but convoluted write-ups in the media purporting to examine technical parameters when the launch was only a few days old. The disparaging observations, whose scientific validity is yet to be commented on, are decidedly premature.

Only a week from now are we expected to have a clearer picture of how India’s unmanned moon probe is going. A couple of months ago, China landed an astronaut on the moon, a remarkable feat. India has moved slower in that direction, and hopes to have its first "gagan-naut" only in the next decade. Its own quicker progress should have made the Chinese self-confident. But that is apparently not the case. Only recently China had become uncertain of itself and made unsuccessful sideways manoeuvres to block the international acceptability of this country’s civilian nuclear programme. A certain element in China’s dealings with India is now becoming evident. It seeks to expand trade and business ties with India. But it continues to remain obstreperous on sorting out the boundary mess, and appears resentful of India’s advances in the more rarefied fields of science and technology involving nuclear and space probes. Of course, these areas have a military side. However, India’s space programme is seen by the leading powers as being wholly civilian in nature, but the same cannot be said of China’s space programme. And perhaps it is this which irks Beijing. Perhaps it is somewhere fearful of India moving in step with the leading democracies in the field of space research (unlike the nuclear field in which India’s experience has been a painful one, much to Chinese glee). The Chinese need be apprehensive of nothing at this stage if they dedicate themselves to building their own brand in the field of space rather than running down another country’s.