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Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
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China views its Space Program as Critical to it's Grand Strategy
China's space program represents a major investment aimed at enabling Beijing to utilize space in expanding its national power. The expansion of comprehensive national power, which has been China's grand strategic objective since at least the reform period initiated in 1978, is critical to recovering the greatness that China enjoyed internationally for most of the last millennium. Recovering greatness, in turn, requires China to sustain high levels of economic growth, preserve internal stability, and neutralize the external threats to its national security.
It has been clearly recognized in China that a space program helps to advance all these three goals simultaneously. As in the United States, Chinese investments in space are judged—correctly—to contribute to enhanced economic growth in multiple ways: They stimulate innovation; they produce technology spinoffs that can be utilized in diverse sectors far removed from their origins; they create demand for new derivative technologies and services; and, they produce fresh opportunities for export. Since space contributes to accelerating economic growth in this way and, by implication, helps China meet its vast developmental challenges, it also aids the state in maintaining internal stability. China's space programs advance this goal either through the direct application of space-related technologies for discharging law-and-order functions or for providing disaster relief, or through the more indirect, but nonetheless equally important, means of sustaining the "social contract" that enables continued Communist rule. China's space achievements also providing the requisite symbolic gains that enable China's rulers to justify their continued rule. Finally, space technologies have become critical to the successful conduct of military operations: they enable China to use its armed forces more effectively either because they permit better collection, transmittal and exploitation of information or because they support the development of new weapons such as responsive directed energy and other non-kinetic technologies.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
China has Developed a Comprehensive National Space Program
China's space program writ large is marked by three distinguishing characteristics. First, it is comprehensive. Unlike some other developing countries which are involved in a few discrete activities, China is a major space-faring nation pursuing endeavors that span the entire spectrum. Today, almost fifty years after China formulated its first space development plans, Beijing is deeply involved in space science; it possesses an inclusive space research, development and manufacturing base that produces everything from launch vehicles to satellites; it has a large ground segment that oversees space launches and includes an extensive telemetry, tracking and control (TTC) network; it possesses a diverse set of space launch vehicles, currently consisting of some ten variants of four basic Long March boosters, now also complemented by newer mobile launch systems; it owns a diverse set of orbital assets, primarily indigenous satellites that provide communications, meteorological, navigation and positioning, remote sensing, reconnaissance, and electronic intelligence services; it has recently embarked on a manned space program that besides being a source of great national pride also represents its most difficult space endeavor, one that promises however to push Beijing to the limits of technology innovation; it has an emerging space services industry that is aimed at offering hardware, launch services, and space-derived products to domestic and international clients; and, finally, China is engaged increasingly in various activities involving international collaboration, be they scientific, technical, or diplomatic. China's space presence is thus marked by the possession of an end-to-end capability. While Beijing still lags behind advanced space powers such as the United States, Russia, and key European states, it nonetheless has laid the foundations for a major presence in space.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
Unlike the U.S., Chinese Military and Civillian Space Programs are Tightly Integrated
Second, China's space program is integrated. Unlike the United States, for example, where a significant divide exists between civilian and military space activities, and where diversity, heterogeneity, and atomistic competition are the norm in both realms, civilian and military space programs in China are not only centrally directed but are also mutually reinforcing by design. Although specific activities in the Chinese space program may be biased towards civilian or defense applications, the entire enterprise, strictly speaking, is a strategic program with no firewalls whatsoever between the civilian and the military. This "unity-in-difference," centered on the primacy of military considerations which suffuse even the scientific, domestic, and commercial elements of the space effort, is protected at the programmatic level by the organizational structure of the Chinese system. Although a now-civilianized Commission on Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND) sits at the apex of the Chinese defense-industrial complex, it is responsive to both the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party and the General Armaments Department of the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) on whose behalf it coordinates the activities of the major aerospace holding companies, the principal research academies, and the third-line industrial organizations that perform work on contract to these institutions. In this context, the China National Space Administration, which is sometimes depicted as China's National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), is essentially a civilian front for international cooperation and a liaison between the military and Chinese defense industry. The military interests of the Chinese state in the space program are thus affirmatively protected, even though Chinese policymakers rarely, if ever, own up to the military dimensions of their space endeavors. As Kevin Pollpeter summarized it succinctly, "China's space program is inherently military in nature…. Indeed, China's space program is a military-civilian joint venture in which the military develops and operates its satellites and runs its infrastructure, including China's launch sites and satellite operations center." The policy consequence of this fact, from an American perspective, is that any collaboration with China's "civilian" space program inevitably ends up aiding its military.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
Imbalance in Dependence on Space Assets between U.S. and China makes Chinese Pursuit of Space Warfare Inevitable
On balance, the evidence suggests that although China is continuing to modernize and expand its military space capabilities, and although Beijing's dependence on space for both civilian and military purposes will progressively increase during the next ten years, China's dependence on space relative to that of the United States will remain considerably lower. In great measure, this is a function of China's limitations: the Chinese space program is relatively small (various sources suggest that its budget ranges between $1-5 billion); China's space efforts continue to remain handicapped by significant deficiencies in technology; and China still remains constrained by the quality of its manpower base. However, the relatively lower Chinese dependence on space prognosticated for the future is also deliberate. Despite its efforts to improve its military space capabilities along the entire spectrum, Beijing appears conscious of the need to avoid becoming overly dependent on space. Given its fears of vulnerability to U.S. counterspace capabilities—which remain formidable—China will be careful never to rely solely, or even dominantly, on space for the success of its military operations. Consequently, space will remain for some time to come one supporting element among many others, at least as far as force enhancement efforts in China are concerned.
This increasing but still minimized dependence on space, coupled with its significant conventional inferiority vis-à-vis the United States (and in specific realms vis-à-vis Japan, India, and Russia as well), suggest that while Beijing will be cautious about the easy use of its direct attack counterspace weapons, it is unlikely to surrender its counterspace options anytime soon. The responsive developments arising from this fact imply that China will inevitably, even if only reluctantly, move further in the direction of taking space warfare seriously, if for no other reason than to protect its emerging space assets and neutralize the offensive capabilities possessed by an adversary.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
China Developing Broad Military Space Capability to Enable its Military to Defend its Borders and Project Power Regionally
China is known to possess space-based electronic intelligence (ELINT) or signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities, though the specific platforms associated with these missions are not identified. China does possess a space-based meteorological and weather assessment capability provided through its Fengyun series satellites and it has reception centers to receive foreign meteorological data. It has now moved ambitiously into the navigation and positioning segment through its Beidou satellite constellation which, though not as precise at the U.S. GPS system, could nonetheless be used to improve the accuracy of China's conventional weapons. China's space systems also include other scientific satellites and an orbital module associated with its manned space program. China does not possess any dedicated early warning satellites, largely because its nuclear strategy is not predicated on the necessity for tactical warning of adversary missile launches. While some Chinese communications satellites perform data relay functions, Beijing still appears to lack a dedicated data relay satellite—a limitation certain to be rectified in coming years.
A summary assessment of China's satellite capabilities suggests that its indigenous systems, combined with its access to foreign platforms or services, provides its military forces with sufficient capability as far as communications, remote sensing/reconnaissance, navigation, and meteorological services are concerned within China's borders or at some distance around them. The new SIGINT/ELINT platforms, electro-optical and SAR imagery satellites, and dedicated data relay satellites likely to be launched within the next decade would enable the PLA to expand its battlespace awareness and targeting capabilities tremendously, support its regional presence and projection operations in East and Southeast Asia and in the Indian Ocean, and fill the missing links required to complete its area and access denial strategy vis-à-vis the United States across the entire western Pacific.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
Chinese ASAT Program only one Part of Broad Counterspace Effort
Finally, and not surprisingly, China has made enormous investments in developing counterspace capabilities. While its other space acquisitions serve the purpose primarily of enhancing China's own combat capabilities, the counterspace programs, which have been accelerated since the 1991 Gulf War, have been directed primarily at being able to interdict or hold at risk those critical space assets that permit U.S. conventional forces to operate with superlative effectiveness. China's counterspace programs today are remarkable for their diversity, depth, and comprehensiveness. They include major investments in: upgrading China's space object surveillance and identification systems; developing direct attack weapons to include direct ascent and co-orbital capabilities; exploring directed energy weapons for dazzling or damaging orbiting satellites; acquiring various technologies for electronic attack against space platforms and their associated links as well as against conventional forces and their warfighting operations; and, improving kinetic and non-kinetic forms of ground attack aimed at the control segments of an adversary's space infrastructure. These counterspace programs continue to persist even after China's infamous ASAT test in January 2007—an event that demonstrated, if nothing else, that all satellites traversing the Chinese mainland in low earth orbit are at risk. While the ASAT test certainly served to highlight the existence of these dangers, it also unfortunately obscured the larger panoply of Chinese counterspace capabilities. In point of fact, direct attack systems remain only one component of a much larger stable of Chinese counterspace assets and, hence, must not be overemphasized to the disregard of the rest.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
Increase in Chinese Space Power puts U.S. Bases and Forces in Pacific Region at Greater Risk of Attack
First, China's space and counterspace programs presage an increase in the vulnerability of key U.S. military assets. The emergence of new Chinese long-range precision attack capabilities, exemplified by highly accurate ballistic and cruise missiles exploiting information derived from various sensors including space-based assets, has already sharpened the dangers facing fixed U.S. and allied bases in the Asia-Pacific. As China's anti-ship ballistic missile capability matures—something that is certain to occur in the policy-relevant future—the threats posed to mobile power projection assets, especially aircraft carriers, which have been the capital ship symbolizing the reach and puissance of American power since at least World War II, would increase dramatically. China's emerging space capabilities will be critical to the success of this area denial innovation: today, Chinese satellites can be used mainly to localize and classify its intended targets, but as time goes by, Beijing's space assets would become critical to the entire detection-to-engagement kill chain with significant operational consequences. The maturation of such innovative area and access denial technologies would not only increase the tactical burdens facing the most important ship of the line and the lynchpin of American power projection throughout Asia, but would also progressively erode the credibility of U.S. security commitments which would be at risk in any case as China's growth in national power gathers steam.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
Rise of Chinese Space Power is Indication that U.S. is no longer Hegemon in Asia-Pacific Region
Second, the expansion of China's space and counterspace capabilities is an ineluctable part of the change in the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific and in the Asian continent more generally. To the degree that emerging Chinese capabilities make the discharge of U.S. security obligations more burdensome, they undermine the one important advantage that the United States enjoyed with the fall of the Soviet Union: unencumbered strategic access to the Asian rimlands. The rise of new Chinese space-supported denial capabilities promises to erase this gain—perhaps permanently. Until these capabilities can be neutralized either through technical counter-innovations or new operating stratagems, U.S. power projection operations will be confronted by two challenges: first, overcoming the barriers to entry surrounding a region of interest and, thereafter, overcoming the adversary's forces within the tactical area of operations itself. The collapse of the Soviet Union had ensured that the success of U.S. power projection was guaranteed so long as American military forces were capable of mastering the latter challenge; the rise of new Chinese space-supported denial capabilities presages a return to an older era when the United States had to overcome both problems in order to make good on its security guarantees and, to that degree, signifies a more extensive contest that is to America's disadvantage.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
Chinese Space Power Significantly Raises Costs to U.S. of trying to Deter China
Third, the growth of China's space and counterspace capabilities contributes to raising the costs of American victory in any future conflict with Beijing. Should the United States find itself in an unlimited war with China, the outcome cannot be in doubt: Washington will win such a conflict and perhaps even win "decisively," if there are no restraints imposed on its use of force. The presence of nuclear weapons, however, ensures that such unlimited conflicts are thankfully unlikely. Assuring victory in a limited war with China, however, becomes more problematic not because the United States suddenly loses all its military advantages in such a scenario but because a limited conflict, over Taiwan or elsewhere, would involve restrictive rules of engagement and other political-operational constraints which, even if not ultimately subversive of victory, would nonetheless increase its burdens. Because most future conflicts that can be envisaged with China involve limited wars of some kind or another, Beijing's increasing space and counterspace capabilities—if well used—could become critical, if not decisive, in some quite representative scenarios.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]
Growing Chinese Space Power Decreases the Chances that War Between U.S. and China will Remain Limited Conflict
Fourth, China's evolving space and counterspace capabilities promise to expand the dimensions of the battlespace—virtually and physically—in the context of any future Sino-American conflict. Because space-supported conventional operations will become critical for victory for both sides; because the space component of military actions—that is, the space, ground, and link segments in their totality—is conspicuous, highly valuable, vulnerable, and contains relatively few nodes; because defensive and offensive counterspace operations may be hard to distinguish especially in the early phases of a conflict; because both sides will seek to competitively use space to expand their situational awareness while denying the same advantage to the adversary; and, because Chinese operational planning, given its overall conventional weakness, calls for counterspace operations as an integrated element of its military response, it is likely that a future Sino-American conflict, even if intended to be limited in a political sense, will be unable to either bound its offensive operations to the local battlefield alone or resist the temptation to launch crippling attacks first. The demands of victory, even in limited wars, will thus require that the force applied—in both material and virtual senses—range far beyond the physical battlefront to the "rear": in the adversary's homeland, possibly in territories of third-parties, and certainly in the realms of space, electronic combat, and computer network operations. Moreover, it may create strong incentives for "first strikes" because of the perceived benefits to conventional operations arising from being able to blind an adversary decisively, even if only for a short time. In such circumstances, ensuring that a future limited war between China and the United States stays restricted will itself become a significant challenge.
Tellis, Ashley J. "China's Space Capabilities and their Impact on U.S. National Security." . Washington, D.C.: U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, May 20, 2008. [ 10 quotes ]