Security: China's Space Ambitions, Issue #2

21 March 2006

Author: Eric Hagt, WSI China Director

The second issue of the World Security Institute’s China Security journal has been released today. Produced by the World Security Institute’s China Program, China Security is a unique policy journal featuring Chinese scholars who provide their perspective on vital traditional and non-traditional security issues that impact China ’s strategic development and its relations with the United States . The English-language journal seeks to build bridges between Washington and Beijing on today’s security issues.



The second issue of China Security is focused on the Chinese space program. In this issue, China Security features six Chinese authors and two American authors who discuss China 's space program and policies and how the Chinese are affected by U.S. activities in space. In addition, World Security Institute President Bruce Blair and Co-Director of the World Security Institute’s International Media Division Chen Yali provide a comprehensive overview of the issue’s salient arguments in their “Editors’ Notes.”



This issue of China Security also provides English-translated reviews of expert articles only available in Chinese, including a review of the new Chinese National Television (CCTV) documentary on the history of the Chinese space program, “Shaking the Heavens.”



A number of articles and books recently published by Chinese authors on space weaponization, civilian space programs and the exploitation of space resources are also explored.



To subscribe to the electronic PDF version, or to receive a hard copy of China Security, please email: info@wsichina.org. Please note that there are a limited number of hard copies available.



Editors’ Notes: The Space Security Dilemma, by Bruce Blair and Chen Yali “Bilateral exchanges…and constructive proposals for cooperation have barely begun in the arena of space policy. The dialogue is oblique, long on rhetoric and short on information.” 
--Bruce Blair, president of the World Security Institute, and Chen Yali, editor-in-chief of Washington Observer Weekly



China’s Space Mission, by Chang Xianqi and Sui Junqin 
“ China does not have any plan to use micro-satellites as anti-satellite weapons…since China is neither the first country to possess this technology, nor the country with the most advanced technology, it seems incomprehensible that China should cause concern to others.”
--Chang Xianqi, professor and former president of the Institute of Command & Technology, and Sui Junqin, Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Command & Technology.



Security in Space, by Zhang Hui
“…a proposal that restricted ASATs while allowing the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system would be perceived by China as discriminatory…any partial arms control measure involving China should emphasize this concern.” 
--Zhang Hui, research associate at the Project on Managing the Atom of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government



Strategic Communication, by Joan Johnson-Freese “When the United States pursues certain technologies…it is for connectivity in a global world. When China pursues similar technology, nefarious intent is assumed because of its Communist government.” 
--Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the department of national security studies at the Naval War College



Shenzhou and Dreams of Space, by Sun Dangen “When the success of the manned space program helps consolidate the country’s strength, it will further lock China in the development path of protecting national security with advancement of science and technology and national comprehensive strength.” --Sun Dangen, senior research fellow at the Academy of Military Sciences Space Weaponization, by Teng Jianqun


“It is reasonable to assume that the development of human productivity will ineluctably bring war from land, sea and air into outer space if no constraints are placed on it. The international community should draw lessons from history and should either halt the current drift toward space weaponization or, at the very least, slow its trend.”
--Teng Jianqun, director of the research department of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association



Space and Export Control, by Guo Xiaobing “It is high time the U.S. chart a new course and dispose of a policy that has not only failed in its goal of preventing China ’s development in space, but has alienated China and fueled an adversarial relationship between the two countries.”
--Guo Xiaobing, researcher at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations



Vulnerabilities in Space, by Eric Hagt “An environment, where each fears the other will be first to develop and deploy weapons and gain the military advantage in space, creates a vicious circle that threatens to undermine the security interests of both countries as well as the international community.” 
--Eric Hagt , director of the China Program at the World Security Institute



Development Goals in Space, by Wu Chunsi “China does not have the luxury of engaging in a military competition with superpowers in space, or in other areas.” 
--Wu Chunsi, associate professor at the Center for American Studies, Fudan University



The World Security Institute is a non-profit organization committed to independent research and journalism on global affairs. Given the extraordinary growth of global interdependence, the Institute provides an innovative approach to communication, education, and cooperation on the social, economic, environmental, political and military components of international security. Through a variety of publications and services, the World Security Institute provides news and research-based analysis to policy-makers around the globe – from decision-makers in Washington , D.C. and Moscow , to scholars in the Farsi- and Arabic-speaking world, to scientists in China .



The Institute serves as an authoritative and impartial monitor of security issues, while continuing to meet the increasing worldwide demand for information and independent ideas. In 2004, the World Security Institute successfully launched a new effort dedicated to promoting research and dialogue between China and the United States on a range of traditional and non-traditional security issues that deeply impact this crucial relationship.



The China Program presently focuses on a number of core projects: China-U.S. Dialogue on Space; China’s Energy Security: New Approaches, Media and Policy; and Challenges for China, the United States, and Europe: A Trialogue on Comprehensive Security. Click here for the PDF version of China Security.



Additional Contact: Eric Hagt , Editor, China Security: Tel: 202.332.0600, ehagt@wsichina.org

(Via World Security Institute.)

China Shows Assertiveness in Weapons Test

By JOSEPH KAHN
Published: January 20, 2007
New York Times / Space

BEIJING, Jan. 19 — China’s apparent success in destroying one of its own orbiting satellites with a ballistic missile signals that its rising military intends to contest American supremacy in space, a realm many here consider increasingly crucial to national security.

The test of an antisatellite weapon last week, which Beijing declined to confirm or deny Friday despite widespread news coverage and diplomatic inquiries, was perceived by East Asia experts as China’s most provocative military action since it testfired missiles off the coast of Taiwan more than a decade ago.

Unlike in the Taiwan exercise, the message this time was directed mainly at the United States, the sole superpower in space.

With lengthy white papers, energetic diplomacy and generous aid policies, Chinese officials have taken pains in recent years to present their country as a new kind of global power that, unlike the United States, has only good will toward other nations.

But some analysts say the test shows that the reality is more complex. China has surging national wealth, legitimate security concerns and an opaque military bureaucracy that may belie the government’s promise of a “peaceful rise.”

“This is the other face of China, the hard power side that they usually keep well hidden,” said Chong-Pin Lin, an expert on China’s military in Taiwan. “They talk more about peace and diplomacy, but the push to develop lethal, high-tech capabilities has not slowed down at all.”
Japan, South Korea and Australia are among the countries in the region that pressed China to explain the test, which if real would make it the third power, after the United States and the Soviet Union, to shoot down an object in space.

China’s Foreign and Defense Ministries declined to comment on reports of the test, which were based on United States intelligence data. Liu Jianchao, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, would say only that China opposed using weapons in space. “China will not participate in any kind of arms race in outer space,” he told Reuters.

China’s silence on the test underscores how much its rapidly modernizing military — perhaps especially the Second Artillery forces, in charge of its ballistic missile program — remains isolated and secretive, answering only to President Hu Jintao, who heads the military as well as the ruling Communist Party.

Having a weapon that can disable or destroy satellites is considered a component of China’s unofficial doctrine of asymmetrical warfare. China’s army strategists have written that the military intends to use relatively inexpensive but highly disruptive technologies to impede the better-equipped and better-trained American forces in the event of an armed conflict — over Taiwan, for example.

The Pentagon makes extensive use of satellites for military communications, intelligence and missile guidance, and some Chinese experts have argued that damaging its space-based satellite infrastructure could hobble American forces.

Yet while China’s research and development of such weapons has been well known, the apparent decision to test-fire an antisatellite weapon came as a surprise to many analysts.

“If this is fully corroborated, it is a very significant event that is likely to recast relations between the United States and China,” said Allan Behm, a former official in Australia’s Defense Ministry. “This was a very sophisticated thing to do, and the willingness to do it means that we’re seeing a different level of threat.”

China’s military expenditures have been growing at nearly a double-digit pace, even after adjusting for inflation, for 15 years. China has begun to deploy sophisticated submarines, aircraft and antiship missiles that the Pentagon says could have offensive uses.

Yet with a few notable exceptions, Beijing has avoided sharp provocations that could prompt the United States or Japan to focus more on what some officials in each country regard as a potential threat.

Chinese leaders emphasize that they are preoccupied with domestic challenges and intend to focus their energy and resources on economic development, a policy they say depends heavily on cross-border investment, open trade and friendly foreign relations.

The country has denied that it intends to develop space weapons and sharply criticized the United States for experimenting with a space-based missile defense system. It forged a coalition of Asian countries to jointly develop peaceful space-based technologies.

Last month it published and heavily promoted a white paper on military strategy that emphasized its view that space must remain weapon-free. “China is unflinching in taking the road of peaceful development and always maintains that outer space is the common wealth of mankind,” the paper said.

Some of such talk amounts to little more than propaganda. But Jonathan Pollack, a China specialist at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., says the Chinese military does in fact act cautiously when it comes to improving its strategic capabilities, like long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, to avoid causing alarm in the United States.

“They have talked about antisatellite weapons,” he said. “But we have always thought that the threat was ambiguous and that China probably wanted it that way. So what was the calculation to go ahead with an actual test?”

Some analysts suggested that one possible motivation was to prod the Bush administration to negotiate a treaty to ban space weapons. Russia and China have advocated such a treaty, but President Bush rejected those calls when he authorized a policy that seeks to preserve “freedom of action” in space.

Chinese officials have warned that an arms race could ensue if Washington did not change course.
At a United Nations conference in Vienna last June on uses of space, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official, Tang Guoqiang, called the policies of “certain nations” disconcerting.

“Outer space is the common heritage of mankind, and weaponization of outer space is bound to trigger off an arms race, thus rendering outer space a new arena for military confrontation,” he said, according to an official transcript of his remarks.

Even so, Mr. Pollack, of the Naval War College, said that if China hoped that demonstrating a new weapon of this kind would prompt a positive response in Washington, they most likely miscalculated.

“Very frankly, many people in Washington will find that this validates the view of a China threat,” Mr. Pollack said. “It could well end up backfiring and forcing the U.S. to take new steps to counter China.”

Other analysts said the test might have more to do with proving a technology under development for many years than a cold-war-style negotiating tactic.
China maintains a minimal nuclear arsenal that could inflict enough damage on an enemy to guard against any pre-emptive strike, these analysts said. But the increasing sophistication of American missile interceptors, which are linked to satellite surveillance, threatens the viability of China’s limited nuclear arsenal, some in Beijing have argued.

That may have prompted the Second Artillery to show that it had the means to protect fixed missile sites and ensure China’s retaliatory capacity by showing that it could take out American satellites.
At the annual military fair in Zhuhai, held in November, the Guangdong-based newspaper Information Times and several other state-run media outlets carried a short interview with an unidentified military official boasting that China had “already completely ensured that it has second-strike capability.” The analyst said China could protect its retaliatory forces because it could destroy satellites in space.

American officials have also noted the development. This month, Lt. Gen. Michael Mapes of the Army testified before Congress that China and Russia were working on systems to hit American satellites with lasers or missiles. And over the summer, the director of the National Reconnaissance Office, Donald M. Kerr, told reporters that the Chinese had used a ground-based laser to “paint,” or illuminate, an American satellite, a possible first step to using lasers to destroy satellites.
“China is becoming more assertive in just about every military field,” said Mr. Behm, the Australian expert. “It is not going to concede that the U.S. can be the hegemon in space forever.”

Space without Weapons: "How to move forward: NGO Approaches and Initiatives for
addressing Space Security

By Rebecca Johnson, The Acronym Institute for Disarmament
Diplomacy.

Notes for presentation at Joint Conference on 'Future
Security in Space: Commercial, Military and Arms Control
Trade-Offs', the Monterey Institute of International Studies and
the Mountbatten Centre, May 28-29, 2002.

This paper was published in James Clay Moltz (ed), Future Security in
Space: Commercial, Military, and Arms Control Trade-Offs,
Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies and
Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, Occasional Paper No.
10 (July 2002)."

(Excerpt on Space Preservation Bill)

The most uncompromising of the NGOs working on space issues, the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, helped initiate and strongly supports a Space Preservation Bill tabled in the House of Representative by Dennis Kucinich (Democrat-Ohio) as HR 3616 (January 2002) In essence, the bill calls on the U.S. to ban all research, development, testing, and deployment of space-based weapons. If passed, it would also require the United States to enter negotiations toward an international treaty to ban weapons in space. The Global Network is now soliciting American groups and individuals and international groups to pledge their support to Kucinich's Bill. Such initiatives, although unlikely to be successful per se, can be very useful in raising the issue and focussing public and political attention. There is, however, one potential danger that has to be taken into account by proponents of national legislation and particularly by advocates of early international treaty negotiations: that premature legislative initiatives may also serve to focus and strengthen the opposition to such measures, thereby "inoculating" the issue against later, more pragmatically targeted initiatives to prevent the weaponisation of space. I am not making an argument against initiatives such as the Kucinich Bill, which can be a very helpful rallying point for activists, so much as sounding a note of caution about how it is used.

(Via .)

Read the whole text

Czechs Give Go-Ahead for US 'Son of Star Wars' Base: "Czechs Give Go-Ahead for US 'Son of Star Wars' Base"

(Via Common Dreams | News & Views.)

Czechs Give Go-Ahead for US 'Son of Star Wars' Base

Space without Weapons:

(Excerpt)
By Rebecca Johnson, The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy

Conclusions

"I will conclude with four brief points.

i) There is still a need to forge alliances and communicate better with commercial and military players, including in the United States, who are rationally capable of recognising the weaponisation of space as a threat to their interests and activities.

ii) We need to engage parliamentarians now much more effectively, to raise the level of debate in different countries and regional institutions such as the European Union, and to provide them with the information and questions to ask governments, defence ministries and regional alliances such as NATO.

iii) We need to do more to break down the institutional and political barriers so as to address both the civilian and military aspects of space security more coherently.

iv) To adapt a principle of political strategy (think globally but act locally), we need to think comprehensively, but build the space security architecture incrementally!

Thank you.

[1] The connection between Sputnik's 50th anniversary and the OST's 40th anniversary was made by Will Marshall during the question and discussion session after my presentation, and I am glad to incorporate his suggestion for timing the OST review conference to coincide with this.

© 2006 The Acronym Institute."

(Via .)

Space without Weapons

Responses to Chinese test [5]: "

Most Russian news repeated almost verbatim the US and British press reports on the Chinese ASAT test, but there is a little info this afternoon on the Russian reaction. (Only Russian language links are up for now, translations are mine.)

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov commented to reporters that he has heard reports of the Chinese test, but thinks that the rumors are quite abstract and are exaggerated.

In an interview, vice-preseident of the Russian Academy of geopolitcal affairs, General Leonid Ivashov, said that he thinks the Chinese used Russian developments for making their antisatellite missiles:

‘I think that China used as a base our Soviet IS-1 (statellite destroyer) system, modernized it and carried out a test.’

[snip]

‘We remember Bush’s announcements about monopolization of space and his threat to destroy all unidentified satellites. Therefore it is possible to say that, it is indeed the Americans who are provoking a new arms race in space ’ [Ivashov] said, noting that China is compelled to react to such US policy.

Japan and Australia seem more concerned than the Russians, and have demanded explanations from the Chinese government.

"

(Via ArmsControlWonk.)

Responses to Chinese test [5]

Congressional Reaction to Chinese ASAT Test: "

House Science and Technology Chair Gordon Comments on Reported Chinese ASAT Test

'I am deeply concerned about the reported Chinese anti-satellite test.  I believe that it is ill-advised for a number of reasons:  it is destabilizing; the debris cloud created as a result of the test increases the risk to civil and commercial satellites; and the test fosters an environment that will make it more difficult to consider potential cooperation with China in civil space activities.  I hope that this will be the last such test to occur.'

Markey Denounces Chinese Missile Test - Calls on Bush Administration to Strike Agreement to Ban Future Tests

'The Chinese anti-satellite test is terrible news for international stability and security, and could presage the dawn of a new arms race -- this time in space,' Rep. Markey said.  'American satellites are the soft underbelly of our national security, and it is urgent that President Bush move to guarantee their protection by initiating an international agreement to ban the development, testing, and deployment of space weapons and anti-satellite systems.'

(Via NASA Watch.)

Congressional Reaction to Chinese ASAT Test

China ASAT test reactions and questions: "

The news first announced Wednesday night that China tested an ASAT weapon last week, destroying a satellite, became one of the biggest stories internationally yesterday. The report was confirmed by a National Security Council spokesman yesterday morning, and by the end of the day the US and other countries, including Canada, Japan, Australia, and South Korea, had 'expressed concern' about the test. The Chinese have remained silent, with no news about the test in state-run media.

The test does raise several questions about which there has been a lot of speculation, but few firm answers:

Why did China conduct the test? The test took a lot of people by surprise (although apparently not in the US intelligence community, which believed that a test was imminent), both because of the bluntness of it and the fact that, prior to it, China had insisted it had no interest in space weapons and was pushing for a treaty to ban such devices. 'There’s nothing subtle about this,' Michael Krepon of the Stimson Center told the New York Times. Does this mean that China is no longer interested in a ban on such weapons, or is it an effort to get the attention of the US and force it to the negotiation table?

How will the Bush Administration respond? Will the US, in fact, reconsider its stance on PAROS, now that there is evidence of an 'arms race in space', or will it push the US to accelerate work on defensive and offensive counterspace systems? The Union of Concerned Scientists wants the US to take the former path, but that would involve a significant change of course from the current national space policy.

What about Congress? The House and Senate armed services committees will get classified briefings about the Chinese ASAT test today, Space News reports [subscription required]. One member of Congress, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), co-chair of the House Bipartisan Task Force on Nonproliferation, condemned the test in a statement but also called on the administration to negotiate a ban on space weapons. 'American satellites are the soft underbelly of our national security, and it is urgent that President Bush move to guarantee their protection by initiating an international agreement to ban the development, testing, and deployment of space weapons and anti-satellite systems.'

"

(Via Space Politics.)

China ASAT test reactions and questions