Will China Shoot Down Explorers to the Moon?

• "We must be very concerned that China is landing on the moon and saying: 'It's ours now and you stay out,'" — Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, interview with Bild, July 2, 2022.
• The Chinese have made it clear that, if they get there [to the moon] first, they will shoot down visitors.
• "Many are beginning to wonder if China will soon do to the moon and the rest of space that which it has done to the South and East China Seas, Taiwan, and northern India: claim them as sovereign." — Brandon Weichert, author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, to Gatestone, July 6, 2022.
• Unfortunately, President Joe Biden has no apparent interest in getting to the moon. Only Elon Musk, with his Starship effort, is developing the means to compete with the Chinese.
• "We are in a second moon race, this time it's for keeps. Whoever gets to the moon with the mostest gets to keep the moon, and the United States is lagging." — Richard Fisher, International Assessment and Strategy Center, on John Batchelor 's CBS Eye on the World radio program, July 6, 2022.

"This is not the first time that the NASA administrator has lashed out at China in disregard of facts," said Zhao Lijian, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, at his July 4 regular press briefing. "Some U.S. officials have spoken irresponsibly to misrepresent the normal and legitimate space endeavors of China. China firmly rejects such remarks."

Zhao, known for rabid anti-Americanism, was reacting to attention-grabbing comments of NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. "We must be very concerned that China is landing on the moon and saying: 'It's ours now and you stay out,'" Nelson told German newspaper Bild in an interview published July 2.

Nelson has every right to be concerned. America may have to go to war with China if it even wants to land on the moon. The Chinese have made it clear that, if they get there first, they will shoot down visitors.

Chinese officials themselves reveal grand ambitions and malevolent intentions. "The universe is an ocean, the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island," said Ye Peijian, the head of China's lunar program, in 2017, referring to features in the East China and South China Seas to which Beijing claims sovereignty. "If we don't go there now even though we're capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants. If others go there, then they will take over, and you won't be able to go even if you want to."

In short, Ye was projecting, blaming others for what Beijing itself intends to do. He was essentially saying that China would exclude others from these heavenly bodies.

In fact, Ye's choice of examples is telling. He said the moon is like the Diaoyu Islands. The Diaoyus, in the East China Sea, have been claimed and administered by Japan, which calls them the Senkakus. The claim of the People's Republic of China to the outcroppings appears weak as a matter of international law: Beijing acknowledged they were Japanese until 1971. This month, Chinese vessels intruded into Japanese territorial waters around the Senkakus, as a means of pressuring Tokyo to surrender them.

Ye also said Mars is like Huangyan Island, China's name for Scarborough Shoal. In early 2012, Chinese vessels seized the South China Sea reef from the Philippines. Beijing claims Scarborough even though it is just 124 nautical miles from the main Philippine island of Luzon and 472 nautical miles from the Chinese coast.

The name of China's Mars rover, Zhurong, is instructive. The official Xinhua News Agency explains Zhurong is the god of fire. What Beijing did not say is that Zhurong is also China's god of war—and the god of the...

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