Western Media On China’s Chang’e-6 Lunar Mission Success – OpEd

Readers following the media for the latest news on China need only to check the coverage of the Washington Post on the Chang’e lunar programme success in collecting and returning to earth a much sought sample of the lunar surface to grasp the extent of prejudice and bias that the Post – and many other western news organisations – bring into their China reporting.

The Chinese achievement has been lauded by scientific experts from many countries as a historic event. As example, two French scientists who collaborated with their Chinese counterparts on the successful mission  provided these comments which are conspicuously missing from Western media reporting

PIERRE-YVES MESLIN, Chief Scientist, Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology “We have been thinking about this moment for years and even more intensely for the last few months and weeks and days. We were watching at the moon every night almost here in Beijing and now we are there on the far side. So actually, it went very smoothly and so it seems that everything went perfect.”

SYLVESTRE MAURICE, Professor, Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology “It’s hard to land on a planet. It’s very hard, especially on the moon. Don’t think it’s easy. And what I’ve seen today seems to have worked absolutely perfectly. They are right. They landed right where they want it to. And remember it’s on the far side of the moon. It’s not the moon we can see the other side. And for that they had even to put a relay. So, there was another satellite to watch landing because we cannot see it. So, it’s quite an achievement, something we’ve been looking for so many so many years.”

US Deafening Silence on China’s Space Achievements 

One would expect that the leaders and media of the nation that flew the first human to the moon when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on July 20, 1969 would applaud this China achievement. They must be aware of its importance in furthering the prospect of international collaboration for mankind to progress in our space exploration. 

But the opposite has taken place. From US political leaders usually quick to comment on any China news, there has been a deafening silence. From most of the US media, there has been a relegation of the event into the back pages or a refusal to include news or reference to it.  

Washington Post Lives Up to Its Tagline

Living up to its tag line Democracy Dies in Darkness in a perverse way, the Washington Post, essential reading for the power elite in DC, not only managed to keep the mission success news out of its science and technology news coverage.  It also strategically ran an interview with NASA one day before the successful return of Chang’e to Inner Mongolia to cast more aspersions on China’s space programme and achievements.

In its lead article on Space on 25 June, the paper featured NASA chief administrator, Bill Nelson, and his claim that the US was “on schedule” to return astronauts to the lunar surface ahead of China. Together with this predictable chest thumping by the NASA boss who is under pressure for his leadership of an underachieving agency, was included the allegation that China’s space program is operating secretly and is an arm of the military. Also that China may not be abiding “by accepted norms of behaviour in space”. No evidence was provided in the article to support the charges. Nor was there an attempt to spell out what the US government’s version of “accepted norms” in space may be.

Presumably these behaviour norms are part of the burgeoning concoction of ‘international rule of law and order’ and sanctions put in place by the United States and its western allies in their effort to derail China’s development and bring down its government.

The Post article conveniently failed to point out that first and foremost in US devised norms relating to outer space exploration is the Wolf Amendment passed by the US Congress in 2011. This legislation prohibits NASA  from using government funds to engage in direct, bilateral cooperation with the Chinese government and China-affiliated organisations without explicit authorization from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Congress. 

The legislation, driven by domestic cold war hawks targeting China as the existential threat to US global leadership, has been inserted into appropriation bills since then. Perhaps the most notable and glaring effect is that It has been used to ban China’s astronauts from visiting or taking part in operations on the International Space Station. For now, the station is host to astronauts from all countries of the world except for China. Sir Martin Rees, the fifteenth Astronomer Royal of Great Britain, has called the ban a “deplorable ‘own goal’ by the US”.

China’s Space Programme Policy 

The Chinese response to the exclusion policy has been to put up its own space station, the Tiangong, and to implement a policy opening the space station to astronauts from all friendly countries. Clearly what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This truism can be seen to also apply to US sanctions and other punitive acts aimed at Huawei, Tiktok and other Chinese successes.  

Unlike the US obsession to be dominant and first in all international activity – including in what western media has been broadcasting as the “great space race” which the Americans see themselves as the pace setter and leader – China has supported international exchange and cooperation in all spheres, including in lunar exploration and argued for the mutual benefit, peaceful use and common development of outer space.

On 27 June, Bian Zhigang, vice-administrator of the China National Space Administration (CNSA), said that scientists worldwide were encouraged “to jointly carry out scientific research on lunar samples and data”. In response to a question whether scientists from the US wanted to take part in that research, Bian said: “I believe they do.”

He also noted that  “if the US really wants to have normal space exchanges with China, I think they should take practical measures to remove obstacles” that limit cooperation. According to him, the root cause of the obstacles … lies in domestic laws such as the Wolf Amendment of the United States, which hinder Sino-US space cooperation.”

The Washington Post and other western media will be doing their readers the right thing by reporting China’s space programme without malice and without any hidden agenda. The Post should also encourage the White House and Congress to work with China to ensure the peaceful development of national space programmes and the collaborative exploration of our planetary system.