A China-U.S. Space Arms Race?
Stephen Uhalley, Jr.
The 50th Anniversary of the Space Age
Three days ago, October 4, marked the 50th anniversary of the successful orbiting of Sputnik I and the beginning of the space age. Sputnik was a wake-up call for the United States.[1] In the Cold War race for space that was now out of the starting gate the Russians made a remarkably good showing, but the United States won the race decisively and today dominates space.
So, 2007 is a special year in the history of the space age. The occasion has been commemorated in many aerospace conferences, pronouncements, publications, and special space launchings. We have been afforded ample opportunity to reflect on what has been a fascinating half century of space exploration, of amazing discovery, and of finding imaginative ways to make productive use of space. Indeed, all those satellites orbiting overhead have tremendously transformed our lives and our remarkably evolving understanding of the earth and of the overall cosmos. We realize, too, that we have all become critically dependent upon those objects we place in space.
In recognition of this exciting yet sobering new reality, aerospace enthusiasts and others have seen this moment in time as propitious not only to reminisce but to thoughtfully plan ahead as well. After all, with the passing of the Cold War we are already well into what is regarded as the Second Space Age, characterized as it is by many nations becoming active in space, not just two superpowers, or perhaps, for a time, a single such power. Indeed, we can already imagine a coming global political environment that will have its corresponding Third Space Age. In any case, all can see that there is need for planning ahead accordingly, in order to assure that activity in space is conducted rationally and equitably. We all have much at stake.
The Chinese Space Program
China, too, has enthusiastically taken part in the excitement of space exploration and utilization in recent years and just last year celebrated its own 50th anniversary in this field.[2] It has registered stellar, if prudently measured, achievements in recent years and has passed two especially notable milestones: the first in 1999 with the launching of an orbiting spacecraft; the second, the successful manned missions of 2003 (one astronaut or taikonaut, for 21 hours in space) and 2005 (two taikonauts, for five days). Appropriately enough, the third milestone was slated for this year, on this special fiftieth anniversary of the space age. This will be with the launching of China’s first unmanned lunar orbiting mission, the Chang’e. Actually, this was to have taken place earlier this year, although, without explanation, it has been rescheduled for this fall instead.
These are all important achievements and they dramatically call attention to China’s significant role in space. It further underscores the seriousness of China’s future plans, which include China’s first space walk next year, in 2008, aboard Shenzhou VII, which is scheduled to launch with three taikonauts aboard. A space laboratory is projected by 2015, along with lunar landings, a lunar base, and a mission to Mars. These ambitious plans were unveiled at the 22nd National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in April 2006,[3] and outlined more fully in China’s white paper on space activities released in October 2006.[4] Further insights into these plans have been revealed subsequently.[5]
It is worth noting that China’s space activity is not limited to such high profile, headline making events. The scope of its space program is both deep and broad. China already has its own constellations of satellites, more than forty at present and steadily increasing in number (about ten each year) and sophistication. This assemblage includes the beginnings of the Beidou (or Compass) navigational system that alone will eventually consist of around thirty satellites.[6] Beidou will compete with the American Global Positioning System (GPS), as well as with the Russian GLONASS and the European Galileo systems. The Chinese navigation system poses a commercial threat to the latter, which is struggling just to come into being. The American GPS, meanwhile, has been available to all, free of cost, and is being upgraded, still free to all.
China is getting more and more into the business of making and launching satellites for other countries and actually has expectations of dominating this market eventually. The Russians who currently handle forty percent of the lucrative international commercial launch market and who hope to increase this percentage cannot be too happy at this prospect. In fact, the Russian space program is lagging at present, although we can expect a burst of renewal here as well as hard cash and patriotic sentiment levels continue to rise in a renewed autocratic Russia.
Why?
One can ask why it is that China has gone into space in such a big way. After all, much of what is now being accomplished was done decades earlier by two other countries taking great risks into the unknown with primitive equipment. Furthermore, one may wonder why more of China’s treasure trove of foreign exchange reserves might not be better invested in dealing with truly urgent environment pollution concerns that so much threaten to eventually undermine the country’s developmental progress.
There are three main reasons for the space program. One is that prowess in space is today’s most evident indicator of great power status; hence to play a major role in this field is an important matter of national pride, and pride for Chinese everywhere. Stroking this pride is especially important for the political leadership, as achievements here help offset grave concerns about systemic inequities, corruption, pollution, and stalled serious political reform. This is not a motivation to be underestimated.
Secondly, China’s leaders, comprised of so many with engineering training, know that a serious space program pays off handsomely. It stimulates technological and scientific advances and spin offs, and raises standards of precision throughout industry and society. This eventuates in the enhanced value and marketability of manufactures. Thus space investment is legitimately and explicitly considered the key technology in China’s drive for comprehensive national strength. Such profound commitment, furthermore, presages well for China’s ambition to finally get into the difficult competition of building and selling large commercial aircraft.
Thirdly, there is the national security or military consideration. This is so important that it is the military that runs China’s space program. A readily mobilized media provides superlative publicity for successes, while shortcomings can be concealed. For example, we learned only two months ago of the deadly threat to China’s first manned mission in 2003. Military control accounts for the program’s opaqueness. This also accounts for the diminutive cooperation with others in space, despite the rhetoric. There is some cooperation, particularly with Russia, but with understandable reservations on both sides. In any case, the military’s prominent role precludes more serious international cooperation.
Unfortunately, despite the genuine worthiness of the first two reasons, i.e., national pride and technological advantage, which provide so much good reason for celebration, it was the third factor, the military, that was in the forefront as the 50th year of the space age dawned. Thus it was that Beijing came to herald this special global anniversary year in yet another, distinctively memorable way. And in doing so, cast a pall over an otherwise exclusively celebratory year.
ASAT Test Shock
On January 11 this year China launched a Long March missile aimed at one of its aged weather satellites, named Fengyun 1C, some five hundred miles above the earth, scoring a direct head-on bulls eye kinetic hit. No new technology was involved, but it was no mean feat either, although the targeted satellite had been maneuvered to facilitate the encounter. China became only the third nation to conduct such an anti-satellite (ASAT) test successfully, and the first one to do so from ground level. The former Soviet Union and the United States had conducted similar tests decades earlier with weapons already aloft.
Curiously, it took almost two weeks for the Chinese government to finally acknowledge the test. Then, it provided belated assurances that the event was not a threat to any nation and immediately reiterated its appeal for an anti-weapons space treaty. Separately, China’s defense minister, visiting in Japan, claimed that it was a “scientific” event but that there would be no repetition of the test. It was apparent that there was a division within the Chinese leadership on this important issue and the Foreign Ministry, for one, apparently was not informed ahead of time. This lack of high level governmental coordination and the unilateral behavior of the military can justly be regarded as potentially alarming.[7] Perhaps Hu Jintao, a civilian engineer, had little choice but to accede to military pressure in this year that also sees the convening of the party congress, which is to approve his continued leadership for another five years.
Of course, the test was not a surprise to Washington, which had been aware of previous failed ASAT tests, just as it knew of earlier laser beam attempts to “paint” an American satellite.[8] Able observers have warned for years of China’s space weapon interests and possibilities.[9] What is surprising is that the Chinese would want to conduct such a test in the first place, as well as the clumsily provocative way in which they went about it, despite predictable costly consequences.
Rationale
Chinese motives, although not officially announced, were made clear enough even before the ASAT test by individual Chinese speaking unofficially. For example, in 2005, Hui Zhang, a Chinese space weapons expert at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, said that Chinese strategists believed that American missile-defense plans pose a great threat to China’s national security in that they could be used to neutralize China’s nuclear deterrent and give the United States more freedom to encroach on China’s sovereignty, including on Taiwan-related issues.[10]
As is well known, the Chinese have been building their military capability for years. They are deeply concerned about American military superiority, something that for all the cash and determination China is unlikely to match head to head for decades. Thus Beijing focuses on an asymmetrical response, going for the dominant power’s Achilles’ heel, even as it concurrently expands its naval (particularly submarine) and aerospace capabilities. Knowing that American military effectiveness depends on certain space assets, they seek to neutralize these. In the event of a military conflict with the United States, possibly over Taiwan, Beijing thus might consider putting out of commission key American satellites, or at least suggest a credible threat that they might do so. Obviously, this possibility does now complicate the Taiwan Strait equation, affecting the calculus that determines what Washington is to do if Taiwan is attacked.
China’s overall idea, it would appear, is to have a two-pronged approach in dealing with American dominance in space. One approach is to develop space weaponry of its own that can be used against American satellites. At the same time, it seeks diplomatically to maneuver the United States into a legal framework that would prevent Americans from developing the space assets or weapons necessary for adequate defense. At least, this latter prong is rhetorically present, and pushed, even if the Chinese themselves might actually have reservations about having restraints placed on what they might do in space. In this regard, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Senior Associate Ashley Tellis argues: “The importance of space denial for China’s operational success implies that its counterspace investments, far from being bargaining chips aimed at creating a peaceful space regime, in fact represent its best hope for prevailing against superior American military power.” Hence, he believes, “Beijing will not entertain any arms-control regime that requires it to trade away its space-denial capabilities.”[11]
In the event, finding itself in a very awkward situation, the Chinese government has decided not to provide any explanation of the ASAT test, probably because to do so would lead to further uncomfortable questions. It also recognizes that silence has its own eloquence. It has, after all, made an unmistakable statement regarding its capability to shoot down a satellite, and with greater precision than simply detonating a nuclear device in space. It can be seen, at base, a challenge to American dominance in space, in keeping with a tradition of possessing at least a modest deterrence capability. As Eric Hagt has plausibly pointed out, “It was a deliberate and strategic, but also defensive, act.”[12]
Thus, the making of this bold statement by action was deemed more important than eventually having to deal with the untoward consequences, if these were ever seriously considered to begin with.
These consequences include the damage done physically in space, the adverse implications for the peaceful rise to power line and to China’s credibility generally, and the further complicating of the already complicated U.S.-China relationship. Furthermore, it is likely to provoke a surely unwanted or undesirable reaction that could lead to further American efforts to protect their space assets and determine ways to neutralize the Chinese military in this regard. Finally, it will preclude the possibility of taking full advantage of opportunities for American cooperation in space, which might otherwise greatly facilitate the success of the Chinese program and expedite useful collaborative scientific research.