A cosmic Chinagate?

Less than a decade ago, conservative Americans, as well as millions of others who didn't necessarily share that political inclination, were astonished and infuriated by the Clinton administration's transfer of critical missile technologies to China, apparently in exchange for campaign contributions from Beijing and one of its key corporate partners, the Loral aerospace firm. The "Chinagate" bribery and technology transfer scandal played an important, albeit subordinate, role in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

In the second term of the George W. Bush administration, the prospect of such aerospace tech transfers to Beijing causes barely a ripple of concern.

NASA head Michael Griffin told the Senate Subcommittee on Science and Space that he had accepted an invitation "to visit China for talks on possible Sino-American space cooperation," reported the AFP news agency on April 25. Despite concerns on the part of some in the Defense Department that such cooperation would benefit our chief strategic competitor, Griffin insisted: "The United States needs good competitors and it needs good partners and sometimes they can be the same."