Link to article: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3105722/china-us-space-rivalry-may-heat-after-nasas-artemis-accords
On Tuesday, October 13th, 2020 Nasa’s new Artemis Accords were signed by the US, Australia, Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates. Thus causing the tension between the US and China’s space rivalry to intensify. These accords will allow countries and private companies to extract lunar resources and create temporary “safety zones” on the moon for their operation to “avoid harmful interference” from others. It will also require countries to share their scientific discoveries as required by the Outer Space Treaty, and to be transparent about what they’re doing in space and to participate in the mutual emergency help and reduction of space debris. Nasa also made it clear that the accords was a baseline for other non-signatories nations to follow, including Russia and China. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian spoke about the accords saying space exploration should be for all. He said any discussion of a legal framework for behavior in space should be conducted within the platform of the United Nations and the Outer Space Treaty, which includes 110 countries.
This article is important because the US went behind China’s back to set up the new space accords and China is expected to follow those accords without any input. China does not seem too upset about that now, but I would not be surprised if in the future China tries to go against these new accords. These accords will also most likely give the US an advantage when it comes to the space wars, which will cause the tensions between China and the US to rise. This is also important because they’re implementing new laws in space! That fact by itself is important because countries will now have to be more open when it comes to anything space so having countries working together will help with scientific findings.
This relates to International Relations because eight different countries have come together and have agreed and signed a document that deals with space exploration. The whole point of International Relations is to help countries come and work together and these accords do just that. In class, we have talked about IGO’s, NGO’s and MNC’s, now while I do not believe nasa takes part in any of these organizations, I do believe nasa does affect international affairs. This would make nasa an ‘Other Actor’ which is specific individual and non-aligned organization who is able to directly affect international affairs, but do not fall under any other category.