Five More Stars in Space

In the Chinese aerospace community there is a story, more of a legend, which claims that the Americans once offered a moon rock for one of the famous Qin emperor’s terra-cotta soldiers. The Chinese refused. They were sure that getting to the moon was nothing more than a matter of time.[1]

When, during the 1978 negotiations over the normalization of diplomatic relations, U.S. National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave a 1-gram moon rock to Chairman Hua Guofeng as a gesture of goodwill, the Chinese passed it to scientists who broke it up and produced dozens of scientific papers describing their findings.

This story tells us nothing new, really. The Chinese have always been a proud and curious people, but it is yet to be known what kind of achievements these two peculiar characteristics put together could signify for China’s next big adventure: the space exploration.

Qian Goes East

The story of the birth, death and rebirth of the Chinese space program is a curious one, full of twists, setbacks, turnovers and sudden sprints. It started when the Fifth Academy of the National Defense Ministry was founded on October 8, 1956, with the involvement of Qian Xuesen, a U.S.-educated engineer recognized as one of the fathers of the Chinese space program.  

Qian was possibly the smartest Chinese on the planet. He studied in the 1930s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at the California Institute of Technology, becoming one of the leading rocket scientists in the U.S. He also participated in the Manhattan Project, contributing to the development of the first atomic bomb. But those were challenging times for Chinese in the U.S., and when the communists took control of China, Qian was accused of being one of their foreign supporters. Consequently, after being under house arrest for several years, he was allowed to go back to his country in 1955. In the following half century, he became one of the driving forces of the Chinese space program.

The Dragon in a Space Suit

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit in October 1957, Chinese leader Mao Zedong was very impressed by the achievement and encouraged his people to build their own man-made satellite. He wanted to put a huge two-ton satellite into orbit in order to dwarf the Explorer that the U.S. launched shortly after, or as he called it: “the chicken egg of the Americans,” even though most of his people were struggling daily with poverty and famine.

Soon after came the disastrous Great Leap Forward, which slowed the efforts of the Chinese scientists and reminded the politicians that, after all, China was still a poor, underdeveloped country. Quickly they understood that the two-ton satellite was not much more feasible than the Great Leap Forward itself, so they reduced their aspirations. There is a reason why it is called “rocket science,” and they realized that building a satellite was not possible without a rocket to carry it up.

Dong Fang Hong I was launched into orbit on April 24, 1970

Following the pragmatic approach suggested by Deng Xiaoping in January 1959, the scientists started to develop a more modest liquid-fueled rocket from scratch. Not as ambitious as launching a two-ton satellite into orbit, but at least this project was a realistic step in the right direction. After some years they successfully developed China’s first indigenously designed liquid-fueled rocket and launched it on February 19, 1960. The rocket reached an altitude of only 8 kilometers, but this is considered the first landmark on China’s difficult road to putting a satellite in space. After ten years, on April 24, 1970 Dong Fang Hong I (The East is Red I) was launched into orbit as China became the fifth nation to achieve spaceflight capabilities.

The Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and the 1970s slowed down the space effort. Many scientists involved in the program were accused of being in league with the West, and many were seized, questioned, tortured, and eventually sent to work in the countryside. The Chinese space program suffered greatly in those years. However, after Mao Zedong died and the Gang of Four was arrested, the Cultural Revolution officially ended, and the progressive communist Deng Xiaoping became the facto leader of the country. He was a supporter of the Chinese space program and decided that it was the right time for China to have its own communications satellite. However, to build one from scratch would have required too much time and effort. He therefore suggested to simply purchase one from the Americans. Negotiations with the westerners started but ended up without any results.

As had happened in the past with their first space endeavor, in the end Chinese scientists had to build their own communications satellite without help, starting from the very bottom. After many attempts and setbacks, China overcame once again the odds and finally placed its first communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit in April 1984.

It is useful to remember that China’s space effort (particularly its manned space program) was languishing during this period because of political and economic events. There was, however, a latent will to go forward. U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s famous speech on March 23, 1983 announcing the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), commonly known as “Star Wars,” reportedly gave new propulsion to the Chinese space program. Reagan’s speech started a new debate in the country over the role of science, research, and technology. This discussion eventually led to the rebuilding of the human spaceflight program. Again the Chinese considered at first to purchase the technology they needed, this time from the Russians, but the two countries could not reach an agreement. Once more China basically had to start from scratch and build an indigenous program. With hard work, money, and resources generously poured into the effort, in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 2000s they launched four unmanned spaceships (Shenzhou I to Shenzhou IV), building up slowly but consistently their own manned spacecraft program.

Yang Liwei, the first Chinese sent into space

Finally, on October 15, 2003, Lt. Col. Yang Liwei became the first Chinese sent into space, and his country became the third sovereign nation to launch humans into outer space, accomplishing what the Soviet Union and the U.S had achieved more than 40 years before.

Two years later, on October 12, 2005, the Shenzhou VI manned aircraft continued the Chinese space program this time sending two taikonauts into space. The third manned mission was in September 2008, when Zhai Zhigang performed the first Chinese spacewalk. Three years later China launched the box car-sized Tiangong I module into space to lay the foundation for a future space station. Tiangong I was soon followed by unmanned Shenzhou VIII spacecraft. The space vehicle docked successfully by remote control with the Tiangong I module, proving that China was able to master this delicate technique. The next mission in space was completed in summer 2012 by two men and the first Chinese woman. During this mission the crew carried out China’s first manual docking, a maneuver already mastered by Russians and Americans in the 1960s. The last effort in space, the 15-day Shenzhou-10 flight in which the Chinese stayed in orbit the longer than they had ever done before, ended in June 2013 and demonstrated to the Chinese people and the world that they were quite ready for the next stage.

The Space Pursuit

When the Chinese started their manned space program in 1992, they created a 30-year long schedule. One is amazed to see how much they stick with it to the present day. Regardless of what some U.S. Congressmen, the mainstream media and in general people suspicious of Chinese’s space ambitions think, the culminating phase of this program has always been very clear: to put a space station in Earth’s orbit by 2020. Now they are well on the way to doing just that. But first, they knew they needed to master space flight and prove they were able to get someone in orbit and safely land him back home. They also needed to demonstrate advanced spaceflight capabilities (docking, maneuvering, orbital construction, communication, long-term life-support, etc.). The launch of manned missions Shenzhou V to Shenzhou X proved that they were capable to do all of those things. In the last ten years Chinese were able to put a man into space, perform their first space walk and successfully grasp space rendezvous and docking technologies. If you are not familiar with the history of manned space exploration, this could sound like a big deal. In a sense it is, but the twisted meanings of these accomplishments than one can read in a huge number of web pages, blogs, articles, essays, even books is frankly ridiculous, when is not annoying.

Losing perspective: a giant leap for the Chinese Space Program

Whether these sources completely ignore the last 50 years of space exploration history or simply don’t know it, their content is full of ideas such as: “Chinese space dominance”,[2] “China’s space ambitions”[3] and of course the ubiquitous “space race with the U.S.”[4]

According to some of these works, China could very well be on the way to building its permanent moon settlement and start mining Helium-3[5] or sending men to Mars.[6] And why not? There are also rumors that they have been building their own Enterprise to fight the Klingons for control of the Alpha Quadrant.

The less pompous truth is that in space technology terms they have just discovered the wheel. And they are not yet sure how to use it. Jeffrey Kluger, a senior writer at TIME magazine, reminds us that someone else has been doing the same stuff Chinese did (and more) for the last forty years:

“But what about those Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs? China’s been in the manned space game for nine years now and has managed four successful launches. The U.S. flew six Mercury missions from 1961 to 1963; ten Geminis in the 20 months from March 1965 to November 1966; and eleven Apollos from 1968 to 1972. In the nine months from Oct. 1968 to July 1969 alone, we popped off the first five Apollos—including three visits to the moon and the first landing.”[7]

Despite numerous westerns press accounts suggesting otherwise, the (modest) space station has remained the Chinese spaceflight program’s ultimate goal. This bears repeating: their declared objective is not going to the moon, not landing on Mars, not to create a Death Star, just building their own space station. This is no space race. At best, it is a space pursuit. 

Chinese Space Presence: What’s the End Game?

So, why are there Chinese in space? If they are not yet ready to terraform Mars or threaten U.S. national security with their starships, why are they mimicking space tasks already accomplished half a century ago by Americans and Soviets? There are several answers to this question but none of them involve quantum torpedoes. Gregory Kulacki, a senior analyst on China’s defense and arms control policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, explains it all talking to Link Asia:

“Well, space technology is important in almost everything we do in modern society, to communication, transportation, navigation as well as to Earth’s observation, disaster management and military and security issues. So the Chinese made the decision early in the 1980s when they decided to modernize their economy and society that they were going to make a major investment in space technology.”[8]

The space station has remained China's ultimate goal

International prestige, national pride and of course geopolitical influence are other parts of the answer. One could also simply ask the Chinese what’s their end game in space, particularly when it comes to their manned space program. According to China National Space Administration (CNSA) China’s space program can be sum up in three phases. Phase one is the launch of a manned space vehicle in space. The Chinese accomplished this first stage with the Shenzhou V and VI missions. Phase two is part of a more complicate and longer process that will eventually grant the Chinese their own completely functional space station. It started in 2011 with the launch of Tiangong I, the space laboratory that has been used as a test for future Tiangong modules (Tiangong II and III) that will constitute the backbone of the definitive Chinese space station. The docking of both an unmanned and a manned space vehicle to Tiangong I mark the final part of phase two which has been successfully carried out with the Shenzhou VIII and XI missions. This stage officially ended with the Shenzhou X mission in June 2013, China's longest manned space mission to date.

At the end of phase two the Chinese mastered rendezvous and docking capabilities, which were pivotal to completing and maintaining a larger space station complex. During phase three, Tiangong I is expected to be substituted with the larger Tiangong II and Tiangong III modules. Their tasks will be to perform space experiments, develop space medicines, introduce new technologies and produce new vegetables and new materials in space.

So, if you ask the Chinese, their main concern in space in the near future might disappoint many storytellers out there: growing crystals at zero gravity hardly threaten the supremacy of the U.S. in space and it does not make that bold, strong title that captures anybody’s attention. Of course one might doubt CNSA’s version when it comes to discussing China’s space aims. After all, if I ask the CEO of a big oil company why is that they are pumping up tens of thousands of barrels per day, the answer will hardly be: “because we want to make money out of it”. It is because they want to create jobs and opportunities across the country, because they are helping fuel its growth, giving a future to their employees. The profit aspect does not suit ads very well. In fact, it could very well be a collateral damage.

So how do we know what China really wants to achieve with its space program? They want to build their space station, fine, but what about the bigger picture? What will they do when their space station is complete? The general answer is of course that we don’t know for sure. The only thing we can do is try to guess. However, there is also another aspect rarely considered but nonetheless fascinating. Maybe the Chinese themselves don’t know what happens next.

Sleepy Eagle, Eager Dragon

Even though China is at list forty years behind the U.S. in space technology, to catch up is not impossible, especially considering the particular political and economic circumstances America is facing nowadays. One could read essays and books about the stripped NASA budget, the growing concern of the public over the expensive amusement for the satisfaction of some engineers and scientists, the lack of the culture of innovation, the absence of ambition, the need of vision and the loss of ingenuity.

America's Space Program: surrendering the final frontier

Just look at the way the Americans are going to space nowadays. Well, more like the way they are carried to space. With the Space Shuttle program ended, Russians provide Americans the “taxi service” they need using the Soyuz spacecraft, charging a modest $63 million per seat. The stagnation of America’s space program is no longer news and you don’t need to see beyond the end of your nose to notice it. In fact, you just need twenty minutes of your time to have it eloquently explained by the space exploration advocate and astrophysicist Neil Degrass Tyson. Speaking on March 7, 2012 before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the scientist said:

“When I think of our golden era of space exploration, the late 1950s right on up through the early 1970s, over that time very few weeks would go by before there would be an article in a newspaper, in a magazine, where cover story would extol the city of tomorrow, transportation of tomorrow, the home of tomorrow. […] As the Seventies drew to a close we stopped advancing the space frontier, the tomorrow articles faded. We spent the next several decades coasting on the innovations conceived by earlier dreamers. They knew that seemingly impossible things were possible and others among them, those who saw what the previous generation had enabled, witness the Apollo voyages to the moon, even if though they were not the participant. This is the greatest adventure that ever was. Yet if all you do is coast, eventually you slow down while others catch-up and pass you by.”[9]

I mistrust anyone who says that the Chinese are catching up to NASA’s achievements quickly and easily, but don’t get me wrong; if things remain as today, the overtaking will eventually occur. No question about that. Someone is describing this particular long-term competition as “the tortoise and hare race to space” in which “a low-budget, steady program overtakes its flitting, fickle, but better-established, rival.”[10] This idea makes sense. It recognizes the many disadvantages of the Chinese space program and keeps in mind the achievements of the American counterpart, but at the same time it also considers the slowly but steady evolution of the former and the stagnation and lack of leadership of the latter. America’s shoestring budget is not the only reason why this is happening and the fact that the Chinese are pouring notable amounts of money in the space pursuit alone doesn’t explain really anything. One has to look at the context in which all of this is happening.

Think about it. Before Gagarin made his legendary trip people didn’t really know what was going to happen. They didn’t know what to expect. As Jeffrey Kluger pointed out in his article, China’s Space Launch: ‘Wow’ or ‘Meh’: “It’s a familiar joke that before Yuri Gagarin became the first human being in space in 1961, people didn’t know whether or not a human being’s eyeballs would explode in zero-g. But the fact is, people didn’t know whether or not a human being’s eyeballs would explode in zero-g. The spacecraft, the spacesuits, the ability to rendezvous, dock, walk in space, reenter safely—every bit of it was new.”

Now it’s not. And what about rendezvous and docking technology, the very basis for any country willing to even start thinking about building a space station? According to John Lewis, Professor Emeritus of Planetary Science at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, hugely complicated procedures have never been done before the Gemini and the Soyuz program. As he explained in an interview broadcasted at CCTV 9: “Now there is a long history of rendezvous and docking. China knows in general that it can be done and has hardware that is capable of doing this. The demonstration of that hardware can be done in one or two flights. It doesn’t require the Gemini program which took twelve flights to invent, and prove and develop and test rendezvous and docking procedures.”[11]

The outcome of the "space race" will depend on both runners

To put it simply, China is profiting from decades of accomplishments by other countries, including microchips, satellite relays, space-age materials, onboard electronics and computing power, to name a few. In other words, China is pursuing 1960s achievements with a 21^st century technology. Considering this, the Chinese space pursuit might become much more interesting in the near future for the three following reasons. First, because they take their cues from countries considered leaders in the space exploration sector, and learn a great deal from them. Second, they benefit from the successes and the failures of those nations, and take example from them in order to choose a particular line of action or avoid any major misstep. Finally, they have a clear plan for the near future and know what to do and how to do it. Their progresses are slow, true, but as Professor John Lewis emphasizes: “there is a much lower level of risk associated with a program that is done carefully and deliberately.” This is a good strategy to avoid any major setback that could jeopardize China’s entire space program.

Whether or not there will be this anticipated overtake, one thing is clear: it will depend on both China and America, but I daresay it will depend more on the latter, on what this country will or will not do as well as on the many implications of its choices.

There is something striking in the observation made by political philosopher John Gray who, writing few years ago about America’s financial problems and its fading global leadership in the London paper The Observer, noted: “In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed. […] How symbolic that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.”

Will China Return the Favor?

Science fiction?

I know I’m asking quite a bit now, but try to imagine being in the future, let’s say 40 years from now, sitting on your sofa and looking at the 2050s version of your TV announcing: “The Chinese minister of Outer Space Affairs is expected to visit Washington D.C. tomorrow. He will be giving a 1-gram Mars rock to the President, as a gesture of goodwill during the negotiations over the normalization of diplomatic relations. The fragment is part of a three pounds rock that the taikonaut Wei Xiaoping has brought back from the Red planet two years ago, when his team successfully landed on the surface of the planet becoming the first ever group of humans to set foot on Mars.”

As a science fiction and fantasy writer, I admit it; I frequently indulge myself, creating unlikely, exotic ideas that later I convert into stories or books for my own amusement, and for the pleasure of anybody willing to read them.

But, believe it or not, for many people this is no fiction, it is tomorrow’s news. I’m not talking about delusional “easterners”, Chinese nationalist or wit-lacking people. I’m talking about NASA’s scientists and engineers, people that have been working on space exploration all their life. I’m talking about members of the U.S. Congress like Rep. Ted Poe, Rep. Rob Bishop and Rep. John Carter just to name a few, all of them gathering to “raise an issue that is of real concern” for the American people and talking about “the Chinese lunar program”, “China’s space station” and “Chinese miraculous turnaround.”[12]

The Chinese space program has landed in the U.S. Congress. The per se reliability of the information given on that occasion does not concern the point I want to make. It is the context that is of some interest here. Fifteen years ago a discussion on Chinese space hegemony might have been addressed in a comic show. Now it resonates in the U.S. Congress. Does this really mean anything for the American space program? Is it a signal that things are changing? Not really. When they were speaking, the Congressmen had no public. The chamber was empty. This says quite a bit about America’s willingness when it comes to space endeavor: they are concerned, but at the same time they don’t really care. The hare has stopped and the tortoise keeps moving forward.

So what about that Mars rock now? Could something like that really happen? Let’s see all of this from a more realistic perspective. What will happen when the International Space Station will be decommissioned in the near future and the only functioning space station will display a red field charged with five golden stars? What will be America’s reaction then? Someone says that we might see that very reaction sooner rather than later. Again, we have to carefully consider not the Chinese, but the U.S. Congress itself.

On NPR’s Science Friday, Ira Flatow raised a very interesting point regarding this issue. He asked: “How is this going to sit with - let's say you look at Congress 10 years now. If the Chinese have a space station, the U.S. no longer is orbiting in the space station, it's not invited to go to a Chinese space station, let's say, or is not allowed to have anything to do with the Chinese space program, are we going to see, do you suspect, some reversal in Congress saying where the heck are we, why were we left out of these things?”[13]

The Chinese Space Program grows ambitious

Fair enough, and by that time there might be more than a bunch of Republican Congressmen facing an empty chamber. Or not? It is Professor Joan Johnson-Freese that provides an interesting answer to Ira’s concerns: “I think you're exactly right. I think there will be a loud cry of how did this happen. […] it's very difficult to do manned spaceflight in a democracy because while we all like spaceflight, we like watching it, when it comes to funding from government funds, it simply doesn't get the priority that things like jobs and roads and education and defense gets. In China, they have an authoritarian government that can keep funding it to whatever level they choose, as long as they choose to do it, and they will do that as long as they get successful results from it.”

How interesting and how sad this is. America’s ingenuity, the propellant of its space achievements, is the very outcome of America’s democracy. How can it possibly be that today the biggest authoritarian State on the planet is suitable for space exploration and the most powerful democracy is not? At least this time the answer seems clear. In democracy you choose, and as the bold generation of Americans under President J.F. Kennedy chose “to go to the Moon”, today’s America is choosing to stay at home.

Investing in Ingenuity

There is some sand on the white-pearl shining wing of SpaceShipTwo. An engineer spots it and quickly cleans the wing with a special napkin. The suborbital, air-launched spaceplane designed for the first generation of space tourists is ready to transport its six passengers in space any moment now. The spaceplane will be carried to its launch altitude by a jet-powered mothership before being released to fly on into the upper atmosphere, powered by a rocket motor. There, its passengers will feel what it is like zero gravity for 4 to 5 minutes while they glimpse Earth from an altitude of 109 km. The spaceplane will then glide back to our planet and perform a conventional runway landing. This is not science fiction.

A flight ticket for the stars

Virgin Galactic is just one of the most famous outcomes of private space flights enterprise or, more simply, privately founded space companies that have popped up in recent years. But it’s not only about tourism. Planetary Resources, Inc. is an American company formed in November 2010. Its stated goal is to "expand Earth's natural resource base" by developing and deploying the technologies for asteroid mining. The space transport company SpaceX made history on May 2012 as the world's first privately held company to send a cargo payload to the International Space Station. These latest new entries in the space panorama are variables that haven’t yet been fully grasped by public opinion. While the “space race” between America and China has received extensive media coverage for many years now, privately founded space companies have been treated so far like an amusement, a strange curiosity of modern times: expensive, premature, unreliable, dream-fueled; an impossible extravagance. It reminds me of something.

While this new reality in development is still at an early stage, it nevertheless shows us something very important: competition in space is good; we have the cold war to prove that. For the foreseeable future, national space programs like NASA and CNSA will maintain the lead in investment in this sector. However, if the outer space starts to be seen as a place where investing money to make money, things could change quickly. Keeping that in mind, within the next few years, almost six hundred paid-up customers will have taken their space trip on board private companies like Virgin Galactic.

As I try to discern the science fiction from the reality, a bewildering thought grasps me. Maybe America’s ingenuity has not been lost after all; it has just been handed over.

Mix

The author would like to thank Alessandro Tamagnini, Michael Langone and Debbie Carroll for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.

* * *

[1] For further information on this episode, please see Gregory Kulacki and Jeffrey G. Lewis, A place for One’s Mat: China’s Space Program 1956-2003, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2009, p. 19.

[2] Brendan O'Reilly, China floats towards space dominance, Asia Times Online, June 19, 2012, available at http://atimes.com/atimes/China/NF19Ad01.html

[3] Peter Foster, Should we fear the threat of Chinese 'space dominance'?, The Telegraph, August 24, 2011, available at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100101952/should-we-fear-threat-of-chinese-space-dominance/

[4] An example is provided here: http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Space-Race-Exploration/dp/144190879X

[5] China Launches Second Moon Mission: Is Mining Rare Helium 3 an Ultimate Goal?, The Daily Galaxy, October 03, 2010, available at   http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/10/china-launches-second-moon-mission-is-mining-helium-3-an-ultimate-goal.html

[6] Morris Jones, China Goes To Mars, Space Daily, October 31, 2010, available at http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/China_Goes_To_Mars_999.html

[7] Jeffrey Kluger, China’s Space Launch: ‘Wow’ or ‘Meh’?, TIME NewsFeed, June 16, 2012, available at http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/16/chinas-space-launch-wow-or-meh/

[8] For the complete interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3EwNV3U6wQ

[9] For the complete speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmKlA_UnX8c

[10] Nicholas Gerbis, Is China winning the new space race?, How Stuff Works?, available at http://science.howstuffworks.com/china-winning-new-space-race2.htm

[11] For the complete interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuVGgGwVUPw

[12] For the complete speech http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVaTMXA8Wq4

[13] For the complete discussion http://www.npr.org/2012/06/22/155582842/will-china-blast-past-america-in-space

Playing the Strategic Board Game of the Century

Risk is one of the most famous strategic board games. It was invented by French film director Albert Lamorisse and originally released in 1957 as La Conquête du Monde ("The Conquest of the World") in France.  At first, the game didn’t attract many fans in Europe, but Parker Brothers, a U.S. toy and game manufacturer and brand, decided to invest in its potential.

So, after Parker Brothers bought the property rights, the Americans started to commercialize it at the end of the Fifties. At that time, the board game had very different rules and it was complicated and slow. Parker Brothers decided to change some rules and the looks of the game, starting with its name, which was changed from "The Conquest of the World" to “Risk.”

RisiKo! (the official, Italian version)

Risk “landed” in Italy at the end of the Fifties. Magically transformed by the Italians into “RisiKo!”, the board game quickly became one of the best-selling games in the country.  Although there are some differences between the north American and the Italian version, RisiKo! is a turn-based game for two to six players. The standard version is played on a board depicting a political map of the Earth divided into forty-two territories, which are grouped into six continents. Each of these territories is occupied by one or more “units” of a specific player.

The final goal of RisiKo! is to conquer a particular territory (or a certain number of territories) or to destroy all armies of a named opponent.  Tactics, strategy, negotiation and, of course, pure fortune, are the skills that made this game so famous all over the world. 

The rules are very simple: each player has a specific mission to complete and the first player to do so wins the game. Players do not reveal their missions to each other until the end of the game.  In order to win, players attempt to capture territories from other players, with the results determined by dice rolls. Each territory taken from an enemy is granted a card that, if combined with others, results in new “reinforcements” necessary to continue the military campaign.

I have to say that this simple hobby was something like a constant in my life. I don’t  exaggerate if I say that, after I learned to walk and write, one of the first things that I remember was being in front of that board game. I played  RisiKo! everywhere, anytime, and with anybody. I remember I was playing  RisiKo! with friends when the Twin Towers fell.

My friends and I spent enormous amounts of time with this board game, eager to conquer the world. Because of them I’ve learned to appreciate the many implications of this game.  It went from a simple hobby into something far more meaningful..  Although one of my friends usually said that “RisiKo! is driven 70% of the time by fortune,” still, this board game can’t possibly be won without tactics.

Starting from a situation of balance of power my friends and I (and the players all over the world) are forced to use all of our skills in order to complete our objectives. Someone simply manoeuvres his armies in order to reinforce his presence in some territories; someone else decides to attack without hesitation his enemies in order to gain cards that could grant him reinforcements; others use their resources to conquer more territories and enlarge their dominion; and so on.

Just like us, every single one of RisiKo!’s players keeps in mind a few “unwritten rules” that are a very important part of the experience that every true fan of this game is supposed to treasure. First of all, never ever allow other players to know your objective. Remember this, or you can be sure the consequences could be catastrophic. 

Second, RisiKo! is a game that can last for a very, very long time, so it’s very important to stay calm and never allow your emotions to drive your game. 

Third. You should watch your borders for build-ups of armies that could imply an upcoming attack. Reinforce your territory, if necessary, and attack when you think it’s time, but remember that it’s useless to continue to attack if it’s not your “lucky turn.”

Last, but not least, making or breaking alliances with other players can be one of the most important elements of RisiKo! So, if someone is growing too strong, don’t hesitate to  remind him that there are other players eager to win.

Now that I have described the rules and some strategies of the game, I would like to discuss the “stages of the game” that give RisiKo! a very particular, paradigmatic meaning.

An example of "hostile equilibrium"

In the first stage, which could last for hours, players coexist in a sort of balance of power: every single one of them receives the same number of units per turn and nobody has ever turned in a set of three RisiKo! cards  and broken the “equilibrium.” Each player uses his or her resources in order to take territories from other players, or to conquer a card or new units to draft every turn. I like to call this preliminary and open-ended stage of the game, “hostile equilibrium.”

In the second stage, the game becomes more interesting and unpredictable because of a particular combination of factors (wise use of resources, better disposition of the units, or simple “luck”). One or more players start to draft turn by turn an increased number of units. Some players see their resources (armies, territories and cards) rise, others simply, see them fall. I call this stage “broken equilibrium.”

At this stage the game it could continue in two different ways: the stronger player might become “unlucky,” lose units and territories, and see the game come back to the stage of “hostile equilibrium.” On the other hand, if this doesn't happen, RisiKo! enters the third stage.

Now, things are very different. One player successfully accumulates a number of units and territories far bigger than the other opponent's. This player has an unchallenged power and influence, and owns more resources and controls a vast number of territories. Often, depending on his objective, he can grant favors to some players who are useful to his purposes and at the same time he can seriously damage some others who endanger him.

When we enter this particular stage of the game, my friends and I usually call it the “dictator stage.”

Hostile Equilibrium

The president of the People’s Republic of China is preparing for a date with destiny. It is the 18^th of January 2011 and for the following three days he will be the special guest of President Barack Obama in the USA. The Chinese president's plane has just landed and there to “salute” him is none other than Vice-President Joseph Biden. Hu Jintao smiles at the army of photographers busy to catch him while the cameramen show the event to the entire world.

Bush and Hu in 2006

His last visit to the United States was five years ago. Hu remembers it very well. At that time there was much less “pomp,” fewer photographers and cameramen. George W. Bush was too busy for the “guest from the east” and Hu Jintao was humiliated with a simple and poor “business breakfast.” No high-profile State dinner for him. Moreover, that visit was full of outrageous “protocol gaffes,” the most notorious one occurring at an official ceremony where Hu Jintao was called “president of the Republic of China,” which is the name of Taiwan, not of the so called “unique mainland,” the People’s Republic of China.

Five years have passed since then, and in this turbulent period five years are no shorter than a lifetime. A lot of things are changed, and Hu Jintao knows that. 

The financial crisis of the late 2000s has shaken the U.S. Obama is facing so many problems that it's reasonable to wonder how he ever sleeps. Obama himself, while Hu shakes hands and enjoy the “party” at the airport, is cleaning the White House and checking the menu. The American president is organizing a high profile State dinner for his Chinese counterpart. Yep. No bacon or scrambled eggs this time. Obama has decided to acknowledge the clear economic weakness of his country by raising the political profile of the visit.

Hu and Obama in 2011

The United States of America is facing a couple of “unlucky turns” and the political decisions taken by the Bush administration haven’t made this unfortunate period much easier for the western country. According to many scholars, the Twin Towers attack has unleashed an emotional and poorly planned response from the Americans, like a RisiKo!’s player after he has been attacked, loses his temper and acts without thinking about the possible consequences. As a matter of fact, for these scholars the two wars (in Afghanistan and Iraq) were exactly this: loss of “units” without taking any “cards.”

While the Americans were busy chasing Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, something else was moving unnoticed on the rest of the “board.” Take China, for example, the fact that Afghanistan was so near to the Chinese board didn’t concern the Chinese politburo. On the contrary, let the “Yankees” have their fun was their thought. The Chinese usually think of the long term and, quietly and unnoticed, looked at their “cards” and smiled.

Also, the Chinese like to keep a low profile, but in recent years their influence in the world stage has clearly risen. Now they are more confident and sure of their capabilities. Much more. 

So, while the Americans were “exporting” democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq, for the Chinese, Osama Bin Laden was the best thing that could have happened.

The ancient Chinese military general, strategist, and philosopher, Sun Tzu, once said: “A  military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.” Taking time and letting the enemy believe that you are not a menace are two of the greatest abilities in a game like RisiKo! when a player wants to move from the stage of “hostile equilibrium” to the next stage of “broken equilibrium.”

Broken Equilibrium

The United States of America and the People’s Republic of China have, respectively, the first and the second GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the world. To be more precise, according to the Italian economist Giovanni Somogyi, the USA's GDP was 14 trillion dollars in 2008, while China's was almost 8 trillion.

A developed country like Italy in the same period had a GDP around one and a half trillion dollars. Countries like the United Kingdom, Spain and France had a GDP similar to Italy.

Considering the fact that in 2008 world trade was around 70 trillions dollars, and keeping in mind that the GDP measures the global amounts of goods and services one could say that the USA and China in 2008 were the world’s most important contributors to world trade.

Today, in 2011, the USA’s GDP hasn’t changed a lot due to the economic and financial crisis of 2008, and countries like Italy, Spain, France, and the United Kingdom have suffered a similar fate.

According to the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and CIA World Factbook, on the other hand, China’s GDP skyrocketed to 10 trillion dollars at the end of 2010.  In a matter of two years China, from having a GDP five time bigger than a country like Italy, increased its GDP to six “Italies and a half”. These things happen when a country’s GDP rises 10% per year while other countries’ economies remain stagnant. In 2010 China’s GDP increased by 10,3%: 2010 has been recognized as a year in which the effects of the economic crisis were still strong.

After the second world war, in the middle of the golden age of North American capitalism, the USA’s GDP increased at a pace of 5 to 6% per year. This means that the People’s Republic of China is growing right now, in this period of economic crisis, at a pace double that of the USA in its period of “economic boom.”

This thought helps us understand a very important point and explains the ambivalent behavior of the USA with respect to China. First of all, the North Americans have to adapt to a turn point in the world’s geopolitics. For some Americans the word China elicits fear; recognizing China’s rise means recognizing America’s decline.

Nevertheless, the United States needs China to grow because year by year they depend more on its economy.

To say the truth, in a way I understand the mixed feelings of the Americans. I felt the same way, after some “lucky turns” playing RisiKo! My units increased and I knew I had more “shots” than my opponents, more moves to explore, and a bigger chance to win. But, sooner or later, the time comes when another player catches me and in that very moment I know that I have to watch my back.

To enter into the stage of “broken equilibrium” is a milestone in every RisiKo!’s match. In some way players know that they have just reached a step closer to victory and every single one of them wants to know how the match will proceed.

The Dictator Stage?

At the end of 2010 Beijing confirmed its intention to build a massive aircraft carrier of over 64,000 tons. In 2020 China should have a fleet composed of six aircraft carriers, and two of them nuclear powered.

China's military capability is growing

On January 11th, 2010 the J-20, a stealth, twin-engine fighter aircraft prototype developed by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group for the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force, made its first flight. Experts confirmed that the J-20 can easily match the U.S. F-22. All of this while the People’s Liberation Army successfully made a fully operational Dongfeng 21 D, a two-stage, solid-propellant, single-warhead medium-range Chinese ballistic missile that should represent the world’s first weapons system capable of targeting a moving aircraft carrier strike group from long-range, land-based mobile launchers.

Now that it has become the world’s second economic power, some western experts show dates like this in order to warn the world against the coming of the “Chinese threat.”

But what is for some westerners a threat to world peace, is for the Chinese the simple, natural consequence of their economic development.

Hu Jintao, core of the fourth generation of Chinese leaders, dreamed not only of a united and stable China, but of one respected all over the world. Nevertheless, while he entered in the car that will take him to the White House, he knew he would face countless un-answered questions.

During the four days he visited the United States, the Chinese president was forced to defend the monetary policy of his country, answer the charge of violation of human rights, and reassure the Americans that trade between the two countries will not create unpleasant imbalances.

The two countries need each other now. Both Hu and Obama know that, but they will possibly face even more problems in the future. It’s up to them to preserve and build up that strange, curious, unstable, and mysterious relationship called “Chimerica.”

One thing remains certain, for over thirty years the Chinese were capable of holding their “cards” close to their chest and avoiding significant economic crises. They have built up “units,” conquered new “territory,” and have successfully projected their influence to that “board game” called the world.

Their strategy was superb, and for some time it remained unnoticed.

But now things have changed. Now, the eyes of the “players” are paying close attention to the Chinese Dragon, and all of them are as sure as they have ever been that the next “turn” will be fundamental in order to understand if all of us are designated to enter the next stage of the “game.” 

Mix

(I Would like to thank my friend Ana for her help. She is the reason why you were not forced to "endure" my poor English)