Re: PLAAF precision guided munitions
China did buy a fairly big stake of galileo, true, worth 230 million euros. Whole project, when finished, is on course to be worth 3 billion euros, two thirds of which is payed by private (mostly european) companies. So one might say that as far as political involvement goes - china bought itself almost a fourth of the whole program. Of course, it is true that in the end, when it comes to worth, EU will be the one to control the on and off switch of each satellite.
Thing is that unlike gps and glonass sat networks, galileo does not have built in features for selective quality signals, coded signals for just EU, etc. You either turn it off completely or not. And since its not a geostationary constellation, you cant just turn off one satellelite to screw over certain area on the earth. To make long story short - yes, signals could be denied to china but that would also mean denying signals to ALL the other users. And with 2/3 of the investors being private - you can imagine how much that'd piss them off. that's billions of euros of lawsuits. So, yes, it can be done, but unless its a life or death situation for europe itself - or unless USA is willing to pay those billions of euros of compensation (to me thats most likely scenario) the galileo network will stay online.
concerning the NATO treaty bit - it says so there itself. If china would attack a european country or US or some of their territoy IN geographical europe or/and north america - then they have the obligation to help. a war over taiwan, or even chinese battles with US forces in japan or afghanistan - that is not covered by the NATO treaty. And one must keep in mind that europe simply does not want to meddle. if it can somehow get past such a conflict so it doesnt get involved - it will do so. Since the NATO treaty itself lets it avoid it without cheating, situation is pretty clear. Again, though, if US gives enough of an incentive - and we're talking dozens or hundreds of billions of dollars in various forms - then who knows what would happen. Money makes the world go around.
China did buy a fairly big stake of galileo, true, worth 230 million euros. Whole project, when finished, is on course to be worth 3 billion euros, two thirds of which is payed by private (mostly european) companies. So one might say that as far as political involvement goes - china bought itself almost a fourth of the whole program. Of course, it is true that in the end, when it comes to worth, EU will be the one to control the on and off switch of each satellite.
Thing is that unlike gps and glonass sat networks, galileo does not have built in features for selective quality signals, coded signals for just EU, etc. You either turn it off completely or not. And since its not a geostationary constellation, you cant just turn off one satellelite to screw over certain area on the earth. To make long story short - yes, signals could be denied to china but that would also mean denying signals to ALL the other users. And with 2/3 of the investors being private - you can imagine how much that'd piss them off. that's billions of euros of lawsuits. So, yes, it can be done, but unless its a life or death situation for europe itself - or unless USA is willing to pay those billions of euros of compensation (to me thats most likely scenario) the galileo network will stay online.
concerning the NATO treaty bit - it says so there itself. If china would attack a european country or US or some of their territoy IN geographical europe or/and north america - then they have the obligation to help. a war over taiwan, or even chinese battles with US forces in japan or afghanistan - that is not covered by the NATO treaty. And one must keep in mind that europe simply does not want to meddle. if it can somehow get past such a conflict so it doesnt get involved - it will do so. Since the NATO treaty itself lets it avoid it without cheating, situation is pretty clear. Again, though, if US gives enough of an incentive - and we're talking dozens or hundreds of billions of dollars in various forms - then who knows what would happen. Money makes the world go around.
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) since galileo wont be operational till 2010. By that time Beidou will be on so china will be sort of covered. Of course the question now turns more to the ability of each side to prevent the other side of using their satellites. But we've been down that road before.