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

CANADA: Liberals would seek international ban on weaponization of space: leaked platform: "

canada, canadian search engine, free email, canada news
Wednesday » January 11 » 2006

Grits would seek international ban on weaponization of space: leaked platform.
Alexander Panetta
Canadian Press
Wednesday, January 11, 2006

MONTREAL (CP) - Canada would seek an international deal to permanently ban weapons in space under a re-elected Liberal government, according to a leaked copy of the party's platform.

The pledge is aimed at rallying the nation's more moderate voters behind the Liberals in a late-campaign drive to reverse the governing party's sagging electoral prospects. Paul Martin will take that stand against weapons in space when he unveils his party platform as early as Wednesday and will paint the pledge as the latest in a long line of Liberal-led peace initiatives.

The idea will almost certainly meet with hostility from the U.S. government, coming on the heels of Canada's refusal to sign on to the American missile-defence project.

As much as that missile snub irritated the White House, public opinion polls conducted earlier this year suggested it was a crowd-pleaser in Canada.

The weapons pledge is one of the few headline-grabbing announcements left for a Liberal party seeking to strike a chord with voters before the Jan. 23 election.

'Liberals are firmly opposed to the weaponization of space and recognize that the best time to prevent an arms race in space is before one begins,' says the leaked version of the platform.

The 85-page document was posted on the website for the conservative Western Standard magazine and confirms unpublished rumours of an impending Liberal space-weapons announcement.

The proposal is modelled on the 1999 international mine ban treaty, for which then-foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

While the Liberal minister did not win the award, he was applauded for an effort that now includes 146 countries and helped clear more than 130 million square metres of land mines around the world.

The United States, China, India and Russia did not sign on to that treaty and it's entirely possible that the world military powers will also take a dim view of the space-weapons pledge.

The Liberals plan to also draw parallels between their proposed space-weapons plan and past initiatives like Pierre Trudeau's nuclear-disarmament tour and Lester B. Pearson's role in resolving the 1956 Suez crisis, which earned him the Nobel prize.

There is at least one notable difference between Martin's impending promise and the land-mines initiative it is supposed to emulate.

Unlike land mines - a global scourge that has killed and maimed thousands of civilians around the world - there are no weapons in space and won't be for the foreseeable future.

The U.S. says its current missile project, which includes interceptor sites in Alaska and California, does not include imminent plans for weapons in space.

Furthermore, the leaked document concedes that an existing international agreement already bans weapons of mass destruction in space. It adds, however, that no such deal exists for smaller-scale weapons.

The rest of the leaked Liberal platform largely confirms recently announced promises. Those pledges include:

- $30 billion in personal income-tax cuts.

- Eliminating the $975 landing fee for immigrants.

- Up to $3,000 to help first-and last-year undergraduate students with tuition and a $150 million fund to offset tuition costs for those wishing to study abroad.

- $3.5 billion for workplace skills training.

- A so-called 'ban' on handguns that would require collectors to disarm their weapons. The plan would also see millions go to police and community projects to help reduce urban crime.

- Continuing to reduce the nation's debt-to-GDP ratio to 20 per cent by 2020 - a level unseen since the early 1970s.

The political aims of the space-weapons ban are unmistakeable.

The Liberals have struggled to find Canada-U.S. wedge issues that would force their Conservatives rivals into an uneasy defence of the more unpopular policies of the U.S. Bush administration.

That strategy - which Martin has attempted on climate change, gun control, the Iraq war and on missile defence - has met with limited success during the campaign.

When Martin rebuked his foes for sharing Washington's hostility to the Kyoto climate-change accord, analysts correctly pointed out his own government's woeful record on greenhouse-gas emissions.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has also tempered his enthusiasm for President George W. Bush's Iraq invasion and for the missile project.

It was the same with gun control.

Liberals were hoping that their proposed 'ban' on handguns would draw their chief rival into a National Rifle Association-style defence of the right to bear arms.

Instead Harper responded with his own anti-gun package that includes harsher sentencing, and was careful to avoid criticizing the principle of gun control.
© The Canadian Press 2006

(Via Campaign for Cooperation in Space.)

CANADA: Liberals would seek international ban on weaponization of space: leaked platform

The European Space Preservation Initiative Proactive Strategy:

THE STRATEGY WE ARE IMPLEMENTING WITH THIS INITIATIVE IS COMPOSED OF THREE SEPARATE PATHS, THAT ARE A GUIDANCE RECOMMENDATION TO STATE MEMBERS OF THE EU-EUROPEAN UNION AND OTHER NATIONS IN EUROPE, FOR A FULL PROCESS BAN OF ALL SPACE-BASED WEAPONS; THE CREATION OF AN OUTER SPACE PEACE-KEEPING AGENCY, A NEW GLOBAL SECURITY SYSTEM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WEAPONS AND WARFARE ECONOMY & INDUSTRY. CONTEMPLATING UNLIMITED PEACEFUL ALTERNATIVES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL HUMANKIND, WITH A LONG LIST OF NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES THAT WILL RISE WITHIN NEW SPACE MARKETS, UNDER AN EXTENSIVE TRANSNATIONAL PEACEFUL COOPERATION DIRECTLY FOCUSED IN APPLYING EXISTING SOLUTIONS TO THE HUMANITARIAN AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS.

- Peace Action, under International Law:

- Educational Effort:

- United Nations Space Preservation Treaty-Signing Conference Sponsorship & World Peaceful Applications, New Energy and Sustainable Development Alternatives Forum:

...

CDI: Space Security Update:

Space industry estimated to reach $180 billion

The Space Foundation released the “Space Report: The Guide to Global Space Activity,” which estimates that the space industry now has global revenues of $180 billion. According to the company’s press release, the report divides the space industry into the following categories: “space infrastructure, space products and services, space revenues and government budgets, how space products and services are used, their impact, and the outlook for the future.” The report’s executive summary can be found at http://www.thespacereport.org/executive_summary.pdf

U.S. Opposes Restrictions on Use of Space

25 October 2006

U.S. Opposes Restrictions on Use of Space
Policy acknowledges new technology, importance of space to international commerce

By Cheryl Pellerin
Washington File Staff Writer


Astronaut Heidemarie M. Stefanyshyn-Piper participates in a spacewalk. (© AP Images)

Washington -- Freedom of action in space is the centerpiece of a new U.S. National Space Policy, the first update in nearly 10 years, that accounts for technology advances and the growing importance of space to international commerce, science, peace and security.

New elements include using space support for homeland security, emphasizing and strengthening interagency partnerships, and renewing the emphasis on the value of mission success in the U.S. government’s space acquisition programs.

U.S. Opposes Restrictions on Use of Space: ""

(Via .)

USINFO.STATE.GOV

CDI Space Security Update #12: Dec. 1, 2006

Space Radar stymied by NRO, Air Force in-fighting • Space industry estimated to reach $180 billion • United States argues against restricting space actions • SBIRS payload tested • GPS satellite cleared for work • Russian military cancels restrictions on satellite navigation system • Indo–Russian space cooperation agreement signed into law • President of India calls for new space data role • China’s satellite ambitions, woes • China’s Compass network • China: first a new ship, then its own space station • Russian general worries about U.S. space-based missile defense.
CDI Publication:

Author(s): Tim Murphy, Victoria Samson.

Bush Space Policy & The Space Preservation Treaty-Signing

TOPIC: THE SPACE PRESERVATION TREATY-SIGNING

THE PROBLEM: Bush Space Policy

U.S. National Space Policy (PDF):
http://www.ostp.gov/html/US%20National%20Space%20Policy.pdf

Space: America's New War Zone
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 19 October 2006
The Independent (UK)

“The Bush administration has staked an aggressive new claim to dominate space - rejecting any new treaties that seek to limit the United States' extraterrestrial activities and warning that it will oppose any nations that try to get in its way.

“A new policy recently signed by President George Bush, asserts that his country has the right to conduct whatever research, development and "other activities" in space that it deems necessary for its own national interests.

“The new policy further warns that the US will take those actions necessary to protect its space capabilities and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to those interests. The document adds: ‘Space activities have improved life in the United States and around the world, enhancing security, protecting lives and the environment, speeding information flow serving as an engine for economic growth and revolutionizing the way people view their world and the cosmos.’

"’Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power.’

“In some respects the policy represents the space equivalent of the "Bush Doctrine" national security policy initially outlined by Mr. Bush in a speech at West Point military academy in June 2002. At that event - and later more formally codified – Mr. Bush said the new US policy would place more emphasis on military pre-emption and unilateral actions….”

From, Space: America's New War Zone, op. cit.

THE SOLUTION: Space Preservation Treaty-Signing

The outcome of the Space Preservation Treaty-Signing is a functioning ban of space-based weapons and warfare in space, operating through an independent Outer Space Peacekeeping Agency that will be formed by the leaders and Nations who sign and ratify the Space Preservation Treaty. This will lead to the transformation of the permanent war economy into a sustainable, cooperative, peaceful New Energy-based Space Age society.

The Space Preservation Treaty-Signing urgently enrolls U.N. Member Nations to individually sign and ratify the Space Preservation Treaty, to ban ALL space-based weapons. The Treaty-Signing creates a growing enclave of U.N. Member Nations, national communities, and legal jurisdictions which have signed and ratified the Space Preservation Treaty, and ban ALL space-based weapons, thus outlawing warfare in space and from space under international law and United Nations Charter and rules.

The Space Preservation Treaty-Signing results in a caucus of U.N. Member Nations which have individually or in small groups signed and ratified the Space Preservation Treaty in cumulative numbers which approximate the latest formal of the U.N. General Assembly vote of 166 – 1 (2 abstentions) in favor of preventing the weaponization of space.

ICIS: www.peaceinspace.com

WORLD PEACE FORUM 2006
DOCUMENTARY: WAR FROM SPACE
Eric Herter
58 min 57 sec - 16-Nov-2006
space4peace.org

WATCH ON GOOGLE VIDEO: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6515526620862018423

URL of this article: http://peaceinspace.blogs.com/peaceinspaceorg/2006/11/republic_broadc.html

European Military Space Capabilities: A Primer

CDI Director Theresa Hitchens and Tomas Valasek, former director of the World Security Institute's Brussels office, provide a unique look at Europe's burgeoning military space programs in their latest publication on European security and space policy, “European Military Space Capabilities: A Primer.” Traditionally a region that concentrates on civil and commercial space applications, this comprehensive guide shows how Europe’s collective and national space projects with military capabilities have grown considerably over the years. (May 2006, Center for Defense Information Press, 68 Pages, $25)

Read the introduction by clicking here. (PDF)

To order a copy, please call (202) 332-0600.