China urges US to join talks on preventing arms race in outer space

Name: How China’s space programme went from launching satellites to building its own space station
Uploaded: 2021-09-29T16:00:30.000Z
Duration: 5 min 6 s
Description: How China’s space programme went from launching satellites to building its own space station

Disarmament envoy Li Song tells UN conference that Washington’s ‘double standards’ are blocking efforts to keep weapons earthbound

Beijing and Moscow have already proposed a treaty to ban the use of arms in space, but Washington has so far refused to join talks on the issue

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China has become a leader in commerical and military space technology. Photo: AFP

Laura Zhouin Beijing

Published: 12:00am, 30 Sep 2021Updated: 12:34am, 30 Sep 2021

The United States has been urged to join China and Russia for talks on banning weapons in outer space.

In a speech to a United Nations conference in Geneva on Tuesday, Li Song, China’s ambassador for disarmament affairs, urged the US to stop being a “stumbling block”.

“After the end of the Cold War, and especially in the past two decades, the US has tried its best to get rid of its international obligations, refused to be bound by new treaties and long resisted multilateral negotiations on PAROS [the 1967 UN resolution on the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space],” Li said.

“To put it bluntly, the US wants to dominate outer space.”

05:06

How China’s space programme went from launching satellites to building its own space station

Beijing and Moscow first unveiled the Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects in 2008, but the move was greeted with scepticism in Washington, which feared it was part of a coordinated effort to curb its ability to develop advanced space capabilities.

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China urges US to join talks on preventing arms race in outer space

Disarmament envoy Li Song tells UN conference that Washington’s ‘double standards’ are blocking efforts to keep weapons earthbound Beijing and Moscow have already proposed a treaty to ban the use of arms in space, but Washington has so far refused to join talks on the issue

Disarmament envoy Li Song tells UN conference that Washington’s ‘double standards’ are blocking efforts to keep weapons earthbound

Beijing and Moscow have already proposed a treaty to ban the use of arms in space, but Washington has so far refused to join talks on the issue