BEIJING: China admitted Tuesday to the use of missiles to destroy one of its satellites but claimed the test never posed any threat and the country has no plans for a repeat.
A spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry said the government has conveyed its response to the United States, which had sought details of the test from China.
The spokesperson reiterated that he knew of no plan for a follow-up missile launch.
Addressing a news conference, he stressed that China has always advocated the peaceful use of space, opposes the weaponisation of space and an arms races in space. "China has never participated and will never participate in any arms race in outer space."
He also maintained that the test was not directed at any country and does not constitute a threat to any country.
Meanwhile, the U.S. state department said in Washington it had received an assurance from the Chinese government that the missile test was not meant as a threat. It said assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill had raised the issue with Chinese foreign ministry officials during his visit to Beijing and that he was told that the 11 January test was not "not meant as a threat against anybody and it's not meant to spark a race to militarize space.''
The test, in which China used a ground-based missile to knock off an aging weather satellite, had drawn intense protests from the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Canada and Australia, saying debris from the destroyed satellite could be dangerous to other space installations. The U.S. is more concerned because it is more dependent on its satellites in orbit for purposes of monitoring several day-to-day chores, including power and water supply, gas and oil storage, and for communication and weather forecast. It also has several spy satellites in space.
