A US-China space race could mean trouble

Toshi Yoshihara
Reprinted from The Boston Globe
10/16/2003

With Tuesday's successful launch of the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft, China has become the third nation, behind the United States and the former Soviet Union, to place a human into the Earth's orbit. Not surprisingly, the Chinese government is now engaged in a full-court press to tout this dramatic event as a major scientific and engineering achievement, complete with full-color photos and large front-page stories in scores of newspapers around the country.

But, for once, its self-promotion is well deserved. Indeed, this first step into space promises more economic and technological advances for China while burnishing the prestige of a ruling regime still in search of an alternative to its ailing communist ideology.

However, amid the fanfare, a more important implication of this technological feat is being drowned out -- the military dimension of China's space program and its potential challenges to US national security interests. Indeed, China's rise as a major space power is already being perceived in Washington as a looming challenge to US space supremacy.

It is no secret that the Chinese military controls the resources and the direction of China's space program. From the program's inception, China's space ambitions have been couched in strategic terms. And the dual-use nature of space technologies means that most advances in the civilian space sector -- about 95 percent -- can be converted for military purposes.

How then, do the military aspects of China's space program intersect with US national security interests?

First, China views US intentions in space with great suspicion. Washington's declaration that it intends to maintain overwhelming space superiority above all other nations (and perhaps militarize space in the process) does not sit well with the Chinese.

Second, Beijing perceives the proposed US antimissile defense plan, which will be supported by an array of space systems, as a strategic menace to China. Any conceivable missile defense system would threaten to blunt China's modest arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons and thereby erode its delicate deterrent posture vis-a-vis the United States.

Third, China will increasingly need military space capabilities if it is to improve its ability to coerce Taiwan in a conflict and counter US intervention to defend the island in a future crisis or conflict.

Above all, China enjoys the resources and boasts the political will to invest in space over the long term. As such, even if China does not pose a credible threat to the United States, perceptions that the Chinese may eventually challenge US space supremacy could spur Washington to view Beijing as a future rival in space.

In other words, Chinese apprehensions of US space dominance might easily be reciprocated.

Does this mean that a Sino-US space race is just over the horizon? America's current technological lead ensures that a Cold War-style competition will not likely transpire, in the short term at least. However, as mutual apprehension and threat perceptions heighten, both sides could seek to undermine each other in space. The resulting efforts to outdo each other could prove costly and destabilizing to international security.

This scenario is by no means inevitable. Both sides ought to shape this new dimension in Sino-US relations for mutual benefit. Indeed, fostering healthy competition and promoting cooperation would go a long way toward alleviating the pressures to compete.

China's successes in space could reenergize NASA, which has been in a state of torpor in the aftermath of the space shuttle tragedy. Beijing should also begin to make its space program more transparent to assuage Washington of its intentions.

The United States, for its part, should welcome China's entry into the exclusive space club as a responsible member of the international community and give Beijing a stake in the global space endeavor in order to reinforce the value of cooperation while satisfying Beijing's quest for national pride. But this will not happen unless governments on both sides acknowledge the potential dangers of competition and gains from cooperation. As such, the Bush administration should view the first launch as a strategic opportunity to engage the Chinese.

It may be worthwhile for President Bush to raise the space issue with Chinese President Hu Jintao during the upcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Thailand next week. Indeed, Bush should act now before a potentially vicious cycle of competition spins out of control.


Toshi Yoshihara is a doctoral candidate at The Fletcher School at Tufts University and a research fellow at the Cambridge-based Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.