1 A China-funded newspaper implied Tuesday that foreign competitors may have triggered an explosion that wrecked a satellite launch last month and humiliated China's budding commercial rocket industry.
2 Going to bat for Chinese rocket engineers, Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong daily, also claimed that the Jan. 26 explosion originated not in the Chinese-made Long March 2E rocket, but in the satellite, built by Hughes Space and Communications Co. of Los Angeles.
3 'It's hard for China, with its progress and development, to avoid jangling the nerves of countries with interests' in the launch business, the newspaper said.
4 'It is not impossible that for political and economic considerations, they tried to challenge and damage China's ability to launch satellites, and its reputation in aerospace fields,' it said.
5 This may have been done by a 'foreign remote signal' beamed at the satellite as the rocket lifted off, it said.
6 China, which says it is investigating the explosion, has not yet pointed any accusing fingers. But Ta Kung Pao said the rocket could have reached a height where it could receive 'signals from the nearest control station in a foreign country.'
7 It did not name its sources or say who it thought might have tried to sabotage the launch. Hughes' Hong Kong office declined to comment on the allegation.
8 The explosion was the latest setback for China's 4-year-old commercial rocket industry, which bills itself as a cheap alternative to Western rivals.
9 The newspaper claimed that data, photos and 'black box' flight recorders from the launch showed that the Apstar-2 satellite blew up seconds after liftoff.
10 'The satellite explosion led to the explosion of the rocket and was entirely caused by the American-produced satellite,' the newspaper claimed.
11 In December 1992, an Australian-owned satellite built by Hughes disappeared shortly after launch aboard a Chinese rocket. China and Hughes did not reach a conclusion on the cause.
12 Ta Kung Pao quoted a source as saying the 1992 launch failure and last month's were similar. Experts who examined both failures 'do not rule out the possibilty that this was a deliberate act,' it said.
13 Apstar-2, a powerful satellite that was to have reached viewers from Australia to Eastern Europe, was owned by APT Satellite Co., a China-controlled consortium based in Hong Kong.
14 In an interview, Yang Xueming, APT's marketing director, said APT has yet to receive an official report about the launch.
15 Asked about Ta Kung Pao's report, Yang said: 'People have their own theories, their own ideas.'
16 Brian Jeffries, who edits Asia Pacific Space Report, a trade magazine, said he'd 'never heard of anybody deliberately trying to blow up a satellite, never, in the history of launches.'
17 Ta Kung Pao also claimed that China produced evidence showing that the 1992 launch failure was due to a problem with the Hughes-built satellite.
18 When China presented its evidence, 'the U.S. side asked the Chinese side not to reveal the truth to the press,' the newspaper claimed.

" It is not impossible that for political and economic considerations , they tried to challenge and damage China ' s ability to launch satellites , and its reputation in aerospace fields , " it said .
for political and economic considerations ,
What types of these considerations were they claiming could be behind a competitor's wish to damage these rockets?