By Nirmal P. Acharya
From September 23 to 25, Chinese President Xi paid a return visit to the United States. In April this year, President Trump visited China.
The mutual visits between China and the United States do not reduce the intensity of the competition between the two countries. This competition has even reached the level of being conducted on the moon.
In 2023, China announced that it would complete a manned lunar landing by 2030. Among major countries, China has the highest safety coefficient for its space program; moreover, the plans it has formulated are usually kept to their promises and fulfilled, with the highest success rate.
In response to this, the Americans initially remained indifferent. The Americans said, “We have already been to the moon before. The United States achieved its first lunar landing in 1969, and then went there several more times repeatedly. So, there is no interest in conducting another manned lunar landing.” However, recently the Americans made a 180-degree turn and suddenly announced that they would also conduct a manned lunar landing.
When the Americans said they would conduct a manned lunar landing, some people asked the American side: “Didn’t you already go there in 1969? Now conducting a manned lunar landing is very simple, isn’t it? Just take the original drawings and modify them, right?” Some of the American officials claimed: “All the archives and records of our 1969 manned lunar landing have been lost.”
The United States even claimed that this manned lunar landing was a fresh start, requiring the entire manned lunar landing program to be developed from scratch.
Moreover, the United States suddenly intensified its stance, stating that it must outdo other countries and complete the manned lunar landing mission before 2028. The term “outdo” means to do it earlier than China.
Even more astonishingly, President Trump recently announced that the moon belongs to the United States.
Looking at all these things together: Why did the United States initially say it had no intention of conducting another manned lunar landing, then proposed its own manned lunar landing plan, then wanted to be the first to complete the manned lunar landing mission – to Trump’s statement that it must be completed before 2028, and finally to Trump’s recent announcement that the moon belongs to the United States?
There is another crucial point. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States recently stated that the United States has already deployed space weapons that can destroy satellites operated by other countries in space, etc. This indicates that the United States has begun to militarize and weaponize space.
Here emerges a key question: Why did the United States, which originally did not want to go back to the moon again, now become more eager than anyone else – insisting on being the first to land on the moon? What is its main motivation?
If the United States were to take the lead in the moon landing and surpass China, it might declare sovereignty over the moon; or even if for various reasons it is not the official of the United States who declares sovereignty over the moon, would it still try to arrange for Musk to have sovereignty over the moon? Or for SpaceX to have sovereignty over the moon? The United States might stand behind them and say: “I firmly support Musk or SpaceX having sovereignty over the moon.”
Yes, as a country that has held global dominance for 35 years, the United States is accustomed to doing whatever it wants.
When we look up and see the moon slowly rising from the Himalayas, we can’t help but recall that the competition between China and the United States is omnipresent. Since the competition between China and the United States has already reached the moon, it will surely also be played out in Nepal.
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