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  • China's Space Program:Making China Strong, Rich, and Respected
  • Kevin Pollpeter (bio)

In 2012 the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under Xi Jinping began what it calls "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," a plan to make the People's Republic of China (PRC) strong, rich, and influential by midcentury.1 China's space program is one element of this rejuvenation. Similar to his other ambitions, Xi has stated the goal of transitioning the PRC from being a "major space power" (hangtian daguo) to being a "strong space power" (hangtian qiangguo) that surpasses the United States as the leading space power by midcentury.2 This ambition is driven by a belief that space contributes significantly to China's national power by serving its political, economic, and military interests.3

The PRC's space program poses military, economic, and political challenges to the United States. China's military doctrine stresses the crucial nature of space in winning wars. In terms of the economic impact, observers in the United States are concerned that the PRC's nascent commercial space industry may displace the U.S. commercial space industry through mercantilist trade policies. From a technology standpoint, the PRC has conducted robotic missions to the Moon, and its space station will become operational at a time when the International Space Station is nearing the end of its service life. [End Page 12]

This essay examines the role of space in advancing China's national interests. The PRC leadership's primary motivation for developing space technologies is national security. However, as this program advances, its commercial and scientific activities will become more prominent and extend the competition to encompass economics and diplomacy. These developments will challenge U.S. leadership in space just as the PRC now challenges U.S. power across the full range of diplomatic, military, and economic realms.

China's Space Program

Since 2000, China has made important progress across a broad range of space technologies, including launchers, satellites, lunar exploration, human spaceflight, and counterspace technologies. It is launching more rockets and satellites than at any other time in its history. China has 323 satellites in orbit, the second-largest number of satellites behind the United States, and now has nearly every type needed to carry out the full range of space missions.

The year 2020 marks an important milestone for China's program. By the end of this year, it will have developed a "global, all-weather, 24-hour remote sensing capability," in part through the use of space-based technologies, and established a global navigation satellite system, BeiDou, to compete with the United States. China has also developed a new generation of launch vehicles designed to meet its needs for the next 30 to 50 years.4 Later this year the country is planning to send a robotic probe to the Moon to gather and return samples of the lunar surface, as well as a rover to Mars.5 By 2022, it plans to complete a 60-ton space station with a ten-year service life.6

China is also developing a wide range of counterspace technologies intended to threaten adversary space systems from the ground to geosynchronous orbit.7 These include direct-ascent kinetic-kill vehicles, [End Page 13] co-orbital satellites, directed-energy weapons, jammers, and cyber capabilities.8 The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has deployed a ground-based anti-satellite missile for use against targets in low-earth orbit and is expected to deploy a ground-based laser this year.9

Military Benefits

Space plays a central role in China's plans to project power far from home, as well as in its ability to defeat high-tech adversaries, such as the U.S. military. The PLA has designated outer space as a warfighting domain—described as a "new commanding height of war"—that China must fight for and seize if it is to win future wars. Since the early 2000s, Chinese military writings have concluded that without space superiority, China will be at a disadvantage in all other domains.10 The 2013 Textbook for the Study of Space Operations, for example, predicts that future wars will likely begin in outer space and that "achieving...

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