Springer’s BILD, which at the time also courted Joshua Wong in Berlin, is now shooting out of all barrels of he guns: Cover story: „The red giant is spreading – China’s acquisition strategy“ and on Scholz and Mitsotakis:

 „China’s faithful port masters ++ This is how the press judged the Scholz deal ++ BILD readers angry at the Chancellor ++ A picture – nice for framing for China’s dictator Xi: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos

 Mitsotakis (54) shows Chancellor Olaf Scholz (64, SPD) his sea view from the Acropolis rock and – in the southeast of Athens – his port in Piraeus, which China has bought. Because Scholz will soon have a bit of a China port in Hamburg, his first visit to Athens is a summit of Xi’s port masters. The Greeks don’t let much come to their port Chinese: The state-owned company Cosco (holds 67 percent) has brought the once rotten Greek port from 20th place to fourth place in Europe. But with the success, the Athens government said on the day only behind closed doors, China’s power also increased: If Beijing coughs, the region will tip over. If Cosco diverts Containers – low tide. The Chinese are in total control. As a port master, Scholz is still a beginner: it was only on Wednesday that he forced his cabinet to sell Cosco a piece of the port of Hamburg. Scholz has ruthlessly asserted himself: What does the China deal mean for the Port of Hamburg? The Chinese have been working their way deeper and deeper into our company for years. Scholz has been silent about the outcry he triggered since Wednesday morning. In Athens he can no longer avoid it. Also because Mitsotakis clearly says that China is planning imperially:

►“We know how China behaves.“

►“No one wants to be dependent on just one country – Russia showed us the consequences.“ ►“Piraeus has been in Chinese hands for 13 years. We have to accept that.”

►“Today we’ll be more careful…“

China-Scholz (flying to Beijing next week) listens to it, follows cloudy: ►“Nobody should be able to make themselves dependent on one side!“

On Twitter, China leader Mao becomes: Scholz-Tse Tung Photo: Source: Twitter

 The world is puzzled, the West is angry. CSU Vice Manfred Weber (50) says at BILD LIVE about Scholz: „Naive!“ Weber warns: „Resist the beginnings!“ But then the next China deal pops up in Berlin: the purchase of the Dortmund chip manufacturer „Elmos“. Chip manufacturer Elmos could soon be in Chinese hands. Because the Chinese are technologically more advanced, who want to keep 200 jobs – and dutifully promise not to steal any secrets, this deal (with small conditions) will also be approved. A beautiful day for Xi…

That’s what the press thinks

The French newspaper „Libération“: „Does the chancellor still have a sense of reality? Does he still listen to his advisors in Berlin?”

►The largest Spanish daily newspaper „El País“: „The port of Hamburg is causing a political storm in Germany.“

►“Taiwan News“: Because of Scholz’s solo efforts, President Macron sees „a threat to his idea of ​​European sovereignty“.

► The „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“ analyzes: „Scholz, who is traveling to Beijing in November, does not want to alienate Emperor Xi Jinping beforehand.“

► The „Münchner Merkur“: „This decision strengthens the leadership in Beijing in their conviction that their policy of intimidation works.“

The compromise around the port of Hamburg below a blocking minority will not solve the problem of critical infrastructure, especially since China already has stakes in over 100 ports in 40 countries, dozens in Europe.  

Um

What is needed is a European New Silk Road with pan-European planning, strategy and financing. This has now begun to happen with the EU program Global Gateway and Biden’s B3W, but so far it only seems piecemeal, and you hear nothing about it in the German media or from the EU. Why should China build a railway line Budapest-Belgrade and not the EU or European companies? Why not the Croatian bridge, etc. Likewise, the question is, insofar as the chief- editor of the Münchner Merkur, Georg Anastasiadis claims that we are in a „war economy“, whether one should not should establish investment monitoring by the EU and NATO or with the participation of these, in order to better assess security policy effects. A European New Silk Road would have the advantage of pushing China out of the 16 plus group, connecting Eastern European and Balkan states to the EU below and without EU membership, creating jobs, boosting the European economy through Keynesian multiplier effects and providing the next generation with a modern and secure infrastructure. Here, Germany should assume a leading role in the EU and not shine with German special ways of Wilhelmian world politics – not only as a military leadership role, especially since that is a laughing joke anyway without its own or European nuclear weapons or without US nuclear protection. And if it is about critical infrastructure. After the 20th Congress, China, following previous conventional anti-satellite weapons tests, threatened to try an EMP nuclear bomb in space to knock out Western satellites, as the US tried once in 1958 with disastrous results and never again. While the wolf warrior diplomat Putin loudly and proletarianly rough threatened with nuclear weapons, Armaggedon, the Cuban Missile Crisis and World War III, the Chinese issued a much more drastic threat to the USA with their EMP threat, which was hardly noticed by the Western media, but sent very quietly and discreet, but which was registered. Interesting that Putin is now copying the Chinese when he threatened the destruction of commercial western satellites, for the time being Elon Musk’s Star Link. When it comes to critical infrastructure, the EU should not forget its critical infrstructure in space, Galileo and protect its own satellites.

“Russia warns West: We can target your commercial satellites

Russia says using satellite imaging to aid Ukraine on the ground can be a call for use of retaliatory strikes.

A senior Russian foreign ministry official said that commercial satellites from the United States and its allies could become legitimate targets for Russia if they were involved in the war in Ukraine.

Russia, which in 1957 launched Sputnik 1, the first manmade satellite, into space and in 1961 put the first man in outer space, has a significant offensive space capability – as do the United States and China. In 2021, Russia launched an anti-satellite missile to destroy one of its own satellites.

Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy director of the Russian foreign ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, told the United Nations that the United States and its allies were trying to use space to enforce Western dominance.

Russia against the use of satellites to aid Ukraine

Vorontsov, reading from notes, said the use of Western satellites to aid the Ukrainian war effort was „an extremely dangerous trend.“

„Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,“ Vorontsov told the United Nations First Committee, adding that the West’s use of such satellites to support Ukraine was „provocative.“

„We are talking about the involvement of components of civilian space infrastructure, including commercial, by the United States and its allies in armed conflicts,“ Vorontsov was quoted as saying at the United Nations.

Vorontsov did not mention any specific satellite companies though Elon Musk said earlier this month that his rocket company SpaceX would continue to fund its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for „good deeds.“

The war in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands, undermined the post-COVID global economic recovery and triggered the gravest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-720734

“Russia’s anti-satellite threat tests laws of war in space

Space has expanded beyond its title as the „final frontier.“ Now, it has become a new battleground.

By REUTERS

Published: OCTOBER 28, 2022 07:43

Updated: OCTOBER 28, 2022 07:52

A Russian official’s threat this week to „strike“ Western satellites aiding Ukraine highlights an untested area of international law, raising concerns among space lawyers and industry executives about the safety of objects in orbit.

„Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,“ senior foreign ministry official Konstantin Vorontsov told the United Nations, reiterating Moscow’s position that Western civilian and commercial satellites helping Ukrainian’s war effort was „an extremely dangerous trend.“

No country has carried out a missile strike against an enemy’s satellite. Such an act during the war in Ukraine could sharply escalate tensions between Russia and the United States.

„This threat has brought us to a brink that we’ve never been to before,“ said Michelle Hanlon, co-director of the University of Mississippi School of Law’s Air and Space Law program. „There’s always been a sense that this could happen, but never has somebody actually said that they might do that out loud.”

Ukraine’s military relies heavily on Elon Musk’s SpaceX for broadband internet beamed from its low-Earth orbiting Starlink satellite network. U.S. firms like Maxar MAXR.N are capturing images of the war from satellites in orbit. And tens of thousands of communications devices in Ukraine rely on U.S. satellite communications giant Iridium’s IRDM.O satellite network.

„It’s really irresponsible to talk about shooting anything down in space for any reason,“ Iridium chief executive Matt Desch told Reuters. „Space has gotten to be quite messy.“

„If somebody starts shooting satellites in space, I’d imagine it would quickly make space unusable,“ Desch said.

Musk and SpaceX did not respond to emailed requests for comment. The billionaire briefly caused alarm this month by saying he could no longer afford to keep funding Starlink service in Ukraine, a position he quickly reversed.

Under the laws of armed conflict, a Russian strike on a private U.S. company’s satellite could be seen as an act of war to which the U.S. could respond, Hanlon said.

White House spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday that any attack on U.S. infrastructure would be met with a response but he did not go into detail.

„The legal aspects of all this are really murky at the moment,“ said Brian Weeden, a space policy analyst at the Secure World Foundation. „We don’t have any examples of wartime uses of force against satellites – there’s really nothing to go off of.“

COMPLICATED CALCULUS

Whether a Russian anti-satellite strike would violate the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, such as its prohibition on placing weapons of mass destruction in space, is debatable, lawyers say. The Liability Convention of 1972, to which Russia is also a signatory, stipulates that countries must pay compensation for any damage caused by its space objects.

Last year Russia demonstrated a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile on one of its old satellites in orbit, blasting it to smithereens. Since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion into Ukraine, Western officials and companies have accused Moscow of repeated attempts to hack and jam satellite internet signals over the region.

Anti-satellite missiles have been widely condemned by the West and astronomers for creating hazardous orbital debris that endangers critical space infrastructure, from crewed space stations to GPS networks that millions of consumer and government platforms around the world rely on.

The only other countries to have conducted direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests are the United States – which last demonstrated an anti-satellite weapon in 2008 – China, and India.

Vorontsov did not single out any companies in his comments to a U.N. panel on Wednesday. But SpaceX’s Starlink has stood out as a persistent target for Russia, which has attempted to signal-jam the network’s signals during the war, Musk has said.

A network of thousands of interconnected satellites encircling Earth like Starlink have been championed by the U.S. military as being resilient to potential anti-satellite attacks that could only target a small portion of the network without fully disabling it.

„It complicates the calculus for the enemy,“ Lieutenant General Philip Garrant, the U.S. Space Force’s deputy chief of strategy and operations, told Reuters. „If there’s lots of satellites, they don’t know which one to target.“

SpaceX’s Starlink network consists of roughly 3,000 satellites, and there are several dozen commercial U.S. imagery satellites eyeing Russia and Ukraine.

„Destroying one or two, or even a dozen, isn’t gonna have much effect,“ Weeden said.

https://www.jpost.com/international/article-720864