BEIJING (AP) - China said
it was concerned about U.S. military plans to shoot down a damaged spy satellite
that is hurtling toward Earth with 450 kilograms (1,000 pounds) of toxic fuel.
The U.S. military has said
it hopes to smash
the satellite as soon as next week - just before it enters Earth's
atmosphere - with a single missile fired from a Navy cruiser in the northern
Pacific Ocean.
The official Xinhua News
Agency quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao Sunday as
saying the Chinese government was monitoring the situation and has urged the
U.S. to avoid causing damages to security in outer space and in other
countries.
"Relevant departments of
China are closely watching the situation and working out preventive measures,"
Liu said. Xinhua did not elaborate.
Russia
also has voiced worries about the U.S. plan to shoot down the damaged satellite,
saying it may be
a veiled test of America's missile defense system.
The U.S. has insisted the
plan to shoot
down the satellite is not a test of a program to kill other nations'
orbiting communications and intelligence capabilities.
The Bush administration and
U.S. military officials have said the bus-sized satellite is carrying a fuel
called hydrazine that could injure or even kill people who are near it when it
hits the ground.
U.S. diplomats around the
world were instructed to inform other nations that the operation is meant to
protect people from the satellite's blazing descent and the toxic fuel it is
carrying. The diplomats also were told to distinguish the U.S. operation from
China's much criticized test last year, when it used a missile to destroy a
defunct weather satellite.
Left alone, the satellite
would likely hit Earth during the first week of March. About half of the 2,268-kilogram
(5,000-pound) spacecraft would be expected to survive the fall and would
scatter debris over several hundred kilometers (miles).
Known by its military
designation US 193, the satellite carrying a sophisticated and secret imaging
sensor was launched
in December 2006. It lost power and its central computer failed almost
immediately afterward.
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