Because it's good for business?

Why did the Chinese knock down their old satellite?

Because of the mystique? Because inscrutability works better than bravado?

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 — Bush administration officials said that they had been unable to get even the most basic diplomatic response from China after their detection of a successful test to destroy a satellite 10 days ago, and that they were uncertain whether China’s top leaders, including President Hu Jintao, were fully aware of the test or the reaction it would engender.

...It was more than a week before the intelligence leaked out: a Chinese missile had been launched and an aging weather satellite in its path, more than 500 miles above the earth, had been reduced to rubble. But protests filed by the United States, Japan, Canada and Australia, among others, were met with silence — and quizzical looks from officials in The Chinese Foreign Ministry, who seemed to be caught unaware.

The mysteries surrounding China’s silence are reminiscent of the cold war, when every case of muscle-flexing by competing powers was examined for evidence of a deeper agenda.

The American officials presume that Mr. Hu was generally aware of the missile testing program, but speculate that he may not have known the timing of the test. China’s continuing silence would appear to suggest, at a minimum, that Mr. Hu did not anticipate a strong international reaction, either because he had not fully prepared for the possibility that the test would succeed, or because he did not foresee that American intelligence on it would be shared with allies, or leaked.

In an interview late Friday, Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, raised the possibility that China’s leaders might not have fully known what their military was doing...

If Dear Leader's mouthpieces are spreading that, you can bet Hu Jintao knew exactly what they're doing.

Defense Tech has an interesting perspective to extend the Pravda:

This was actually the fourth time the Chinese tried to destroy a satellite, GlobalSecurity.org notes. And as "reckless, self-defeating and stupid" as the test was, adds Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis, the test was legal, because there's "currently no prohibition on destructive ASAT [anti-satellite] testing. There should be."

...Last week's test has given a "shiver of hope" to the "nation’s star warriors, frustrated that their plans to arm the heavens went nowhere for two decades despite more than $100 billion in blue-sky research," Bill Broad says in a tart opinion piece.

You don't suppose the old Cold Warriors at the Pentagon (and Big Time Dick) asked 'em to try again?

Or maybe, since the Chinese own such a big piece of our own defense industries, they're just trying to keep up the price of their stock.