The $120m Asia Satellite Telecommunications Ltd consortium formed in Hong Kong by Cable & Wireless Plc, China International Trust & Investment Corp and Hutchison Whampoa Ltd has been caught up in the wave of revulsion that followed the June massacre in Tiananmen Square: President George Bush has put a ban on high technology exports to China, but General Motors Corp’s Hughes Aircraft Co was due to deliver the satellite to the consortium by December 15 for onward delivery to the Xichang space port in Sichuan Province by February 12 for launch on April 20; the satellite is intended to carry telephone and data communications and television and to serve an area covering not only China but Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, North and South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan – and the threat of delay is causing would-be users to hold off from investing in earthstations; also threatened by the hiatus are two further Hughes satellites being built for Aussat Pty Ltd, which are due to go up on China’s primitive but effective Long March rocket in 1991 and 1992.
