China's New Red Star- In Space

TransGriot Note: My latest piece for Global Comment.

When I was growing up, the space race between NASA and the Soviet space program was a major topic of conversation.

The race to the moon between the United States and Russia was a major avenue of Cold War competition that NASA lagged in during the early days.

The Russian space program piled up history making achievement after achievement during the late 50's and 60's while the United States struggled just to get a rocket off the launch pad.

From its Baikonur Cosmodrome Russia launched the world's first ICBM, the world's first orbiting satellite in Sputnik 1, the first satellite to reach the moon in Luna 1, the first manned orbital flight in 1961 with Yuri Gagarin, and the 1963 flight of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space.

Under the Interkosmos program 14 cosmonauts from 13 nations such as Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Cuba and France were paired up with a Russian cosmonaut and blasted into space.

Eventually the United States got its space act together during the 60's, spurred on by President John F. Kennedy bold declaration of putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade. Thanks to NASA's Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs the goal was accomplished when Apollo 11 landed on the moon July 20, 1969.

In the United States we're about to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Our onetime Russian Cold War rivals are one of our major international partners helping to assemble and staff the International Space Station.

Just as our space program has slipped from the heady days of the Apollo era, the Russian one has fallen a bit as well due to tight budgets. The breakup of the Soviet Union also put the Russians in the position of having to lease the historic Baikonur Cosmodrome until 2050 since it now sits in Kazakhstan.

As the Russians upgrade the Plesetsk Cosmodrome and NASA prepares to retire its aging space shuttle fleet in 2010, China has made moves over the last few years to challenge both nations in a bid to become the leading space-farer on earth.

China launched its first satellite in 1970, but didn't conduct a manned space mission until the Shenzhou 5 mission was launched October 15, 2003. Taikonaut Yang Liwei made 15 orbits of the Earth before touching down in Inner Mongolia.

They quickly followed it up with the Shenzhou 6 two-man mission almost two years later. It was launched October 12, 2005 with taikonauts Nie Haisheng and Fei Junlong making 76 earth orbits over nearly five days before touching down.

Read the rest of my post at Global Comment.

June 4, 1989

Today is the 20th anniversary of the Chinese government crushing the student led pro democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

Student demonstrators calling for government reform and an end to corruption occupied Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing for five weeks in the spring of 1989.

Those demonstrations captured the world's attention, but unfortunately between the late evening of June 3 and the early morning hours of June 4, the plug was pulled on the foreign networks such as CNN broadcasting the event and soldiers backed by tanks opened fire on civilians in and around the square. Casualties were estimated between 200-1000 dead.

It also produced the iconic photo in this post of a lone citizen stopping an armored column. The fate of that brave citizen is unknown to this day.

The Chinese government can try to censor it all they want, but no one will forget what happened 20 years ago and the remarkable five weeks preceding it. Keep those that died on June 4, 1989 in your thoughts and prayers.

It's a reminder to those of us who live in democracies that as much as we gripe about the imperfect nature of the governments we live under, these freedoms are hard won and require eternal vigilance to keep.

It is also a reminder that there are people who put their lives on the line in other parts of the world to obtain the freedoms that too many of us take for granted.

China's Transgender Community

Since the turn of the 21st century, China has begun making another 'Great Leap Forward' in terms of modernization and putting itself in the world's spotlight.

We got a glimpse of just how much it has progressed during the recently concluded Beijing Games, and its space program continues to take giant leaps as well toward their ultimate goal of becoming the second nation to put a man on the moon.

One interesting thing that has come to light is that China, like 'errbody' else on our planet, has an estimated 400,000 transgender people in their midst. Over 1000 of them have had surgery, and we in the West have been getting introduced to them and their stories as well.

It's not unusual now to Google 'china transsexuals' and see many links to various stories about transpeople in China. But all Chinese transsexuals probably owe a major debt to internationally acclaimed dancer Jin Xing. Her struggles and eventual SRS in 1995 basically opened the door that has made life easier for other transpeople across China to follow.

Chinese society has become more open and tolerant towards transsexuals to the point where in 2004, Chen Lili won the Miss China Universe pageant and was poised to become the first transgender contest in the 50 plus year history of the event that was being staged in Ecuador that year. But rules were quickly passed limiting the event to cisgender women and Chen was barred from participating.

Maybe the Donald should rethink that ban. Some of the biggest traffic days I get on TransGriot is when I post video or photos from various transgender pageants around the world.

As the examples of Jin Xing and Chen Lili show, Chinese transpeople are being fully integrated into society. They can now change their ID cards without hassles, their civil rights are protected by law, and after they have surgery can get married and have those marriages recognized by the state as valid.

They are examples that the rest of the judgmental Western world would do well to emulate, especially in my own country.