Two weeks ago, high above eastern Asia, a Chinese missile unerringly hunted down and struck its target. The precision was impressive--and frightening in its strategic cunning.

No, the target wasn't the derelict weather satellite that happened to get blown to smithereens by the missile's impact. More important, the space shot hit home in the editorial offices of the New York Times. Responding exactly as could have been expected, the Times editors first accused the Bush administration of having "bellicose attitudes" of its own, then urged the administration to sign on to "an arms control treaty for space," which would ban what China had just done.

Not that the Times fully comprehended what China had done. The editorial claimed it had destroyed a retired "communications satellite." But the explosion in space destroyed something else, too. An international treaty "banning" space weapons, as the Times advocates, would depend crucially on the expectation that, absent effective verification procedures, the parties would be able to trust each other because of a track record of openness and candor. In the aftermath of the secretive Chinese test and official obfuscation at all levels of the Beijing regime, any such hope is as shattered as the ill-fated Fengyun weather satellite.

Russia, too, stepped in to demonstrate bluntly the vanity of hopes that transparency and honesty could provide a firm basis for a credible anti-space weapons treaty. Vladimir Putin, visiting India, sniped that China "is not the first country which has conducted such trials. . . . As far

In its January 20 editorial, the Times adopted a tone of sweet reason: "Surely it would make military and diplomatic sense," the editors urged, "to seek to ban all tests and any use of antisatellite weapons. . . . The way to counter China or any other potentially belligerent space power is through an arms control treaty." Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) agreed: "It is urgent that President Bush move to guarantee protection [of American satellites] by initiating an international agreement to ban the development, testing, and deployment of space weapons and antisatellite systems." Gary Samore of the Council on Foreign Relations told the Times, "It puts pressure on the U.S. to negotiate agreements not to weaponize space." And the Boston Globe celebrated the Chinese strike because "it could lead to something positive" since it might persuade the Bush administration to talk about a treaty.

Indeed, China and Russia, along with other nations, have for years been pushing for what they call a "treaty to prevent the deployment of weapons in space." But just as with Abraham Lincoln's famous five-legged dog ("If I call a tail a leg, does a dog have five legs?"), this so-called treaty has no prospect of delivering on its grandiose title.