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China Unlikely to Try and Match U.S. in Space Weapons Arms Race

 

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 ]

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