WASHINGTON – During the Cold War, US eyes were riveted on the SovietUnion’s rockets and satellites. But in recent years, it has been China’sspace programmes that have most worried US strategists.
China, whose space effort is run by the People’s Liberation Army, todaylaunches more rockets into space than any other country — 39 last year,compared to 31 by the United States, 20 by Russia and eight by Europe.
On Thursday it landed a space rover on the dark side of the Moon — afirst by any country — and plans to build an orbiting space station in thecoming decade. In the decade after that, it hopes to put a Chinese”taikonaut” on the Moon to make the first moonwalk since 1972.
China now spends more on its civil and military space programmes than doRussia and Japan. Although opaque, its 2017 budget was estimated at $8.4billion by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
That’s far less than the $48 billion the United States spends on itsmilitary and civilian space programmes, says analyst Phil Smith ofconsulting firm Bryce Space and Technology. But it is more than doubleRussia’s civilian space budget, which has been slashed to $3 billion.
Overcoming a lag of several decades, China’s leaders have very methodicallyreplicated the stages of space development achieved by other great nations:a first satellite in 1970, its first manned space mission in 2003, thefirst docking of a manned spacecraft to an orbiting module in 2012, andactivation of the BeiDou satellite navigation system, China’s answer to GPS.
“If they continue on this trajectory, they’re going to quickly eclipseRussia in terms of their space technology capabilities,” said ToddHarrison, an expert on military space programmes at the Center forStrategic and International Studies in Washington.
China currently poses no threat to the commercial satellite launch market,which remains dominated by companies including US-based SpaceX and Europe’sArianespace, and Russia.
Nor has China’s progress in space exploration eclipsed that of the US.
NASA’s head congratulated China on its Chang’e-4 Moon landing but a 2011 USlaw bars space cooperation with Beijing, although Congress could lift thatrestriction.
The real rivalry is in two areas: in the short term, military uses ofspace; and long-term, the exploitation of resources in space.
The mining of minerals or water on the Moon or on asteroids, notably toproduce fuel for rockets, is still a long way off, but American start-upsare already working on it.
Unlike the Cold War, the new conquest of space is unfolding largely in alegal vacuum.
In the 1960s and ’70s, Washington and Moscow negotiated several treatieson space, principally to guarantee scientific cooperation and to banweapons of mass destruction in space.
“The treaties are too vague to be really certain what the legal result isfor something like space mining,” said Frans von der Dunk, a professor ofspace law at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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Moreover, they have been overtaken by new military technologies:anti-satellite lasers, cyberattacks, electronic jamming, and land-basedanti-satellite missiles — like the one China tested in 2007.
Laws of war govern conflicts on Earth, but there is no equivalent forspace. And unanswered questions abound.
If one satellite collides with another in space, does that constitute an”attack”? What would be a proportional response? Civilian satellites shouldbe protected from reprisals but what about satellites with dual civilianand military uses? How does a nation respond to a cyberattack of uncertainorigin?
“It’s very hard to distinguish between weapons and non weapons in space,”said Jack Beard, a professor in the University of Nebraska’s space lawprogram.
“It’s unfortunately hard to envision any major armed conflict on Earth notextending into space,” he added. “The Chinese have been preparing forwhatever eventuality may be in the future, and… they have beenexperimenting with systems to interfere with our communications, ourtransmissions from satellites to drones.”
Harrison concurs: “The United States has not been keeping pace with thethreats against our space systems,” and that has left the US vulnerable.
Meanwhile, US dialogue with Beijing is virtually nil, in contrast withWashington’s exchanges with Moscow during the Cold War.
“If there’s a crisis in space involving China, it’s not clear our militaryknows who to call,” said Harrison.
But other observers take a more skeptical view of portraying China as anaggressive adversary of the United States.
Brian Weeden, of the Washington-based Secure World Foundation, said someproponents of the China-as-threat argument wield it as a way to get moneyfor NASA out of a tight-fisted Congress.
They “think that will motivate the US to go off and do the stuff in spacethat they want to do,” he said.
“They see the competition with China as a key to unlocking the politicalwill and money to fund the projects they want to see.” – APP/AFP
