Take me Seriously, Please!

The Chinese Government’s latest attempt at being seen as a world power shows just how far they’ve come and how big a gap of a gap there still is in their understanding of international political norms.The ability to shoot a satellite out of orbit puts China in a unique group. Only Russia and the US have also successfully demonstrated this ability. The technical advances that China has shown in the last few years are world class—a man in space, their own fighter plane and now their rocket technology. Heady stuff for a country that didn’t have any functioning universities 30 years ago.Critics of China’s latest foray into the space race will say that China is deliberately being belligerent and will only encourage other developing countries to increase their offensive space technology also. Not to mention that the US is very threatened since many of our military sat’s are in orbits similar to the weather sat that China shot down.But more than the development of technology, I see the communications gap, or the unwillingness to play as a member of a global community as more threatening. China refused to comment on the rocket test for two whole weeks. Not even acknowledging direct questions. When they did verify what the rest of the world could already confirm they refused to accept any degree of responsibility for what effect their actions may have on other countries in the world.China is not ignorant of the global environment in which they participate. Indeed they regularly, and bellicosely, whine that they are not accorded the respect they deserve as the worlds largest population, 4th largest economy and third largest country. But it seems that the leaders in Beijing are of the impress, or at least the attitude, what they do in the name of “domestic development” or “national defense” are not only off limits to any outside commentary but actually occur in a vacume.China just doesn’t think that they need to play by the rules.