Despite numerous indications that China is interested in developing ASAT weapons and significant overall improvements in China's space program over the last two decades, China still lacks a number of capabilities that would be required for a viable ASAT program. These limitations include:

• Limited tracking capabilities. China continues to rely heavily on shared and leased space tracking facilities, which might not be available in the event of a conflict. Despite a domestic network, two foreign sites, and four tracking ships, the Chinese tracking system does not have a global reach.


• Limited launch capabilities. Although its launch capabilities have been improving, China still lacks the launch on-demand capability required for space warfare and for an effective ASAT system.


• Vulnerable infrastructure. China's immobile launch facilities, tracking facilities, space infrastructure, and possible ground-based laser sites would all be vulnerable to attack.

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Deters, Angela, Jing-dong Yuan et al. China's Space Capabilities and the Strategic Logic of Anti-Satellite Weapons. Monterey, CA: Center for Nonproliferation Studies, July 22, 2002. [ 5 quotes ]

 

China’s relative strategic isolation in relation to the United States is a further complicating factor for Beijing in calculating the vulnerability of its space capabilities. It is worth considering that during operations in Iraq, up to 77 percent of the communications bandwidth used by U.S. deployed forces was provided by commercial suppliers, a significant percentage of which were foreign. Thus, strategic allies will potentially be very important in the new global space environment. ( More ... )

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Hagt, Eric. "Mutually Assured Vulnerabilities." China Security. Vol. 1, No. 2 (2006): 84-106. [ 6 quotes ] [ page 91 ]

 

China has no firm security alliance with any of the major space-faring nations. Cooperation with the European Space Agency on Galileo, providing China access to satellite navigation capabilities independent of the U.S. Global Position System, has posed real concern in the United States. However, though China has invested 200 million euro in the 3 billion euro program, its participation in development and production of the system will be limited. In addition, under pressure from the United States, the European Union has taken precautions to ensure that China will not have access to sensitive technologies or functions. ( More ... )

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Hagt, Eric. "Mutually Assured Vulnerabilities." China Security. Vol. 1, No. 2 (2006): 84-106. [ 6 quotes ] [ page 91 ]

 

Despite this, China’s military presence in space is sporadic. It does not have a coherent military space architecture. If an effective military space program entails continuous coverage by intelligence collection satellites and a network of communications satellites, China has not made the effort. This absence in space is not the result of a lack of technological capability, but reflects a national decision about how to spend resources for space. ( More ... )

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Lewis, James A. "China as a Military Space Competitor." Perspectives on Space Security. Ed. Audrey M. Schaffer. Washington, D.C.: Space Policy Institute, December 2005. [ 8 quotes ] [ page 107 ]

 

China has a long-standing capacity to track objects in space. It is based on a number of ground stations (including two located outside of china) and four satellite tracking ships. The ability to track object in space is critical for space operations. China would need this capability in order to carry out manned missions as well as for orbiting satellites. However, it is also critical for anti-satellite operations, whether ground-based or for inorbit attacks. Locating U.S. satellites is a necessary precursor to the successful conduct of anti-satellite operations. This combination of tracking capability and a range of experimental anti-satellite programs suggest that anti-satellite efforts could be the greater source of risk for the U.S. This concern needs to be tempered by the lack of actual ASAT tests by the Chinese. An operational ASAT program would test its weapons (as the U.S. and the Soviets did in the past) against space targets. Although there have been terrestrial tests ground of lasers that may have been for anti-satellite purposes, the Chinese have not conducted tests against targets in space. ( More ... )

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Lewis, James A. "China as a Military Space Competitor." Perspectives on Space Security. Ed. Audrey M. Schaffer. Washington, D.C.: Space Policy Institute, December 2005. [ 8 quotes ] [ page 106-7 ]

 

China persists in underwriting America's instant-gratification lifestyle by exporting cheap consumer goods to the United States while financing a substantial part of the U.S. national debt by buying hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. Treasury notes. On the other hand, China is regularly portrayed by U.S. hardliners as the next great threat. In its continuing enthusiasm for buying Treasury notes, China underwrites the further development of America's new high-tech way of war. This is distinctly odd behavior for a nation that is presumed to be preparing for a High Noon confrontation with the United States. China is intent on integrating itself into the global economic system- strange behavior indeed for a nation that is regularly depicted as a military threat to the United States and, by extension, the West. ( More ... )

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Moore, Mike. "A New Cold War?." SAIS Review. XXVI, No. 1 (Winter-Spring 2006): 175-188. [ 7 quotes ] [ page 184 ]

 

American threat assessments, however, focus almost exclusively on real or potential capabilities. Because intentions can be easily changed, asserting peaceful aims carries little weight for Americans. Such assurances do little to assuage suspicions or downgrade threat projections. Also, since the late 1990s, the predominance of "hawkish" American attitudes toward potential threats has pushed the U.S. intelligence community to adopt extremely conservative criteria for projecting threat -- for instance, by assessing an adversary's 'possible capabilities' instead of 'likely capabilities.' This is a throwback to the early Cold War habit of using 'greater-than-expected' threats as the basis for building up U.S. nuclear forces. 'Possible' threat is even more extreme than 'greater-than-expected' threat. In any case, there is nothing China can do to convince American worst-case analysts that China could not possibly adapt its dual-use space capabilities for 'possibly' posing military threats to the United States. There is no escape from this logic trap.

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Blair, Bruce and Chen Yali. "The Space Security Dilemma." China Security. Vol. 1, No. 2 (2006): 2-15. [ 3 quotes ] [ page 5 ]

 

China's near-term military modernization efforts focus primarily on capabilities to provide an advantage in the advent of a conflict with Taiwan. If a conflict occurred, improvements to Chinese missiles would be most determinative regarding their potential success, though space-based reconnaissance capabilities would also be improtant force enhancers, especially towards keeping U.S. military assistance at bay. Currently, however, no indication exists that the Chinese have focused on integrating space capabilities into either their military doctrine or operation to try and achieve an asymmetric advantage. For now, it appears China's intentions focus on military modernizations and not being potentially shut out of the heavens by the U.S. or left unprepared for the deployment of U.S. space weapons, which the Chinese anticipate will occur. The Chinese are not interested in pursuing a spending race as the Soviets did in response to Star Wars. To the contrary, the Chinese are acutely aware of how that worked out for the Soviets and will not repeat that mistake. But the Chinese are clearly taking their cues from the United States in terms of future military space hardware development.

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Johnson-Freese, Joan. "A New US-Sino Space Relationship: Moving Toward Cooperation." Astropolitics. Vol. 4, No. 2 (Summer 2006): 131-158. [ 1 reference ] [ page 132 ]

 

If the Cold War space competition did not rise to the level of an arms race in some respects, there are strong reasons why the Chinese-U.S. competition can be even less intense. The Chinese leadership is smarter than the Soviet leadership. Beijing will not bankrupt itself in a military competition. Instead, the Chinese military will compete asymmetrically and cost-effectively. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) could employ temporary and reversible effects against U.S. satellites – the Pentagon's preference – or it could fight dirty, with kinetic energy weapons. Presumably one message of its crude A-Sat test was to clarify that, if push comes to shove, China will contest the Pentagon's objective of space control using weapons of its choosing.

Beijing's ambitions in space go well beyond this objective. China's space program is also intimately connected to its economic goals and status consciousness. Beijing's status has been damaged by creating an enduring hazard to space operations in low Earth orbit. Its economic ambitions also will be jeopardized if the Cold War taboo against destroying another nation's satellites is broken. The interconnectedness of the economic and military aspects of space power – another key difference from the Cold War – constitutes another reason why an arms race in space is unlikely.

The Pentagon also has learned important lessons from the Cold War. Back then, the United States had insufficient appreciation of the dangers of space debris. Now all stakeholders in space are keenly aware that debris constitutes an indiscriminate, lethal hazard. This is why the Chinese test was so irresponsible – and why Congress would further damage America's standing and security by emulating Chinese misbehavior.

Perhaps the most important reason why an arms race in space between the United States and China is unlikely is because a race is not required to mess up essential satellites. A single nuclear detonation can do extraordinary harm, as can a modest arsenal of old-fashioned kinetic energy weapons. Neither China nor the United States needs to race to mess up space.

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Katz-Hyman, Michael and Michael Krepon. "An Arms Race in Space Isn't the Problem." Space News. February 12, 2007.

 

The short-term military consequences of an all attack by China on US space assets are limited, at most. Even under the worst-case scenario, China could only reduce the use of precision-guided munitions or satellite communications into and out of the theater of operations. They would not be stopped. China could destroy a large fraction of strategic intelligence gathering capabilities; but not all of it. With a greater than normal expenditure of fuel, the remaining US spy satellites could continue to survive their crosses over China and photograph Chinese troop movements, harbors, and strategic forces but, of course, at a reduced rate. The war would, however, quickly move into a tactical phase where the US gathers most of its operational photographs using airplanes, instead of satellites. US ships and unmanned vehicles might, theoretically, have difficulty coordinating, during certain hours of the day. Most of the time, they would be free to function normally. China's space strike would fail to achieve its war aims even if the United States failed to respond in any way other than moving its low Earth orbit satellites.

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Forden, Geoffrey. "How China Loses the Coming Space War." Wired Magazine. January 10, 2008.

 

If China and the US are going to come into armed conflict with each other in the next several decades, it will almost certainly be over the status of Taiwan. China has, for instance, indicated that it would be willing to use force if Taiwan took steps to formalize its independence from the main land or otherwise prevent its eventual reunification under the rule of the People’s Republic. In such a scenario, it is entirely likely China could consider trying to negate or drastically reduce the US ability to use space at a tactical level.

But China could not launch the massive attack required to have anything like a significant effect on US ability to utilize space without months of careful planning and pre-positioning of special, ASAT carrying missiles around the country. It would also have to utilize its satellite launch facilities to attack any US assets in deep space: the GPS navigation satellites and communications satellites in geostationary orbit. Most importantly, it would have to time the attack so as to hit as many US satellites as simultaneously as possible. And, despite all that movement, Beijing would somehow have to keep the whole thing secret. Failure to do so would undoubtedly result in the US attacking the large, fixed facilities China needs to wage this kind of war before the full blow had been struck. Even if the United States failed to do so, China would undoubtedly plan for that contingency.

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Forden, Geoffrey. "How China Loses the Coming Space War." Wired Magazine. January 10, 2008.

 

Based on the orbits of US military satellites determined by the worldwide network of amateur observers, there appears to be a large number of low Earth orbit military satellites over China several times each week. To hit them, China would have to preposition its ASAT-tipped missiles and their mobile launchers in remote areas of China, one position for each satellite. (If reports of low reliabilities for these missiles are correct, two or more missiles might be assigned to each satellite.) Furthermore, these positions are really only suitable for a particular day. If China’s political and military planners have any uncertainty at all about which day to launch their space war, they would need to pre-position additional launchers around the country. Thus, attacking nine low Earth orbit satellites could require as many as 36 mobile launchers—enough for two interceptors fired at each satellite with a contingency day if plans change—moved to remote areas of China; areas determined more by the satellite orbits than China’s network of road. (As will be discussed below, nine is about the maximum they could reasonably expect to hit on the first day of the space war.)

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Forden, Geoffrey. "How China Loses the Coming Space War." Wired Magazine. January 10, 2008.

 

A problem that seems to be gaining both increasing awareness and increasing frequency is that of miscommunication, either deliberate or unintentional. First, there is an increasing number of publications and information sources coming out of China now than in the past, when everything could be assumed state approved. That being the case, there is increasing instances of documents or information sources being misinterpreted as indicating government views, when they did not, and with mistranslations that conferred very different meanings to communications than perhaps intended. Gregory Kulacki and David Wright at the Union of Concerned Scientists in the United States have made it a point of trying to correct some of the more egregious wrongs, but errors seem to just keep coming. More disturbingly, these miscommunications seem to be used by the U.S. government in their analyses both of China's capabilities and their intentions. World Security Institute China Program Director Eric Hagt, speaking before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on March 30, 2007, raised that point in his testimony, stating the danger. "Misinterpretation based on problematic analysis and translation could lead to a worsening of U.S. security in space through misjudgment and overreaction."

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Johnson-Freese, Joan. China's Space Ambitions. Paris, France: Institut Francais des Relations Internationales, Summer 2007. [ 9 quotes ] [ page 24 ]

 

Before China carried out an anti-satellite test in January 2007, some U.S. policy-makers, including NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and the U.S. House China Working Group, advocated greater cooperation between the United States and China in space. After the test, which created a massive cloud of space debris that angered international space professionals and alarmed the American public, increased references to U.S.-China competition and hints of a new space race drowned out calls for cooperation.

Using the experience they gained from visiting China several times in the last eight months, analysts Jeffrey Lewis and Gregory Kulacki will evaluate the costs and benefits of cooperation and competition between the United States and China in light of the history of Chinese interest in ASAT technology and an assessment of China's growing aerospace industry.

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Kulacki, Gregory and Jeffrey Lewis. "A Space Race with China? -- Presentation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, February 18, 2008 [ 1 reference ]