Long March rocket’s re-entry a warning from the heavens that US, China hubris must change

Beijing’s disparaging ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy is starting to look more like the approach of former US president Donald Trump

In the absurdity of the new political paradigms in Beijing and Washington, the word hypocrisy no longer has any meaning

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People watch a Long March 5B rocket, carrying China’s Tianhe space station core module, as it lifts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Centre in southern China’s Hainan province on April 29. Photo: AFP

Published: 1:30am, 11 May 2021Updated: 2:31am, 11 May 2021

Throughout the ages, astronomical phenomena have often been seen by humans as an omen. Chinese imperial rulers, in particular, developed the world’s most sophisticated and detailed observations of the night sky as a fundamental tool of governance.

Disturbances and aberrant phenomena in the firmament needed to be taken seriously as they might signal war, famine or pestilence. They might have also been seen as a message from the heavens that governing policies must change.

Keep this in mind as we ponder the remnants of China’s Long March 5B rocket, which streaked over the Mediterranean in the predawn hours of Sunday and splashed down around the Maldives.

As the space junk tumbled out of control in the days beforehand, keeping authorities guessing about where it would land, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin dismissed concerns about it hitting a plane or village by saying the chances of that were “extremely low”.

A social media post by a Communist Party organ juxtaposing the country’s successful launch of a module into space with grim cremation pyres in India was deleted after it prompted a backlash and debates over how China should respond to its neighbour’s plight amid worsening bilateral ties. Photo: Weibo

Let us pause here to imagine how blistering his or Zhao Lijian’s criticism of the US government would have been had the debris belonged to Nasa. Then there would have been the hours of commentary in the official media about how such reckless behaviour should be seen as a symbol of Washington’s arrogance.

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