Journalism of Courage
AS India stole the march over China by launching a mission to Mars on Tuesday,Beijing called for joint efforts to ensure peace in outer space. Outer space is shared by the entire mankind. Every country has the right to make peaceful exploration and use of outer space, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a media briefing when asked about Indias Mars probe.
At the same time,he said,the international community should make joint efforts to ensure enduring peace and sustainable development of outer space.
Asked whether China is apprehensive of Indias space programme,Hong said relations between the two countries are on a path of steady growth.
Political mutual trust between our two countries has increased and mutual cooperation has expanded, he said.
However,official Chinese media alleged that India is undertaking ambitious ventures to overtake the countrys space programme.
The state-run Global Times daily criticised Indias space programme,saying it sent a probe to Mars despite having millions of poor people to gain an advantage over China.
India has an ambitious goal of leading Asia in this area,especially having an advantage over China, it said in an editorial titled Indias space ambition offers clue to China. So far,only the US,Russia and EU have succeeded in Mars exploration. Other attempts to reach Mars,including Chinas Yinghuo-1 mission and Japans Nozomi mission,have failed. As poor as India is,New Delhi managed to carry out its Mars exploration program with a budget of only 73 million dollars,much less than the spending of China and Japan, it stated.
India is poor,so is China when compared with its Western counterparts. New Delhi has set China as its target,while China views the advanced level of the US and Russia as a reference… China has achieved a leap forward in the development of manned space flight and space station technology. It has already been in advance of India, it added.
