Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues

This American embargo on space cooperation with China and has done little to hinder the development of the Chinese space program. China’s recent launching of the world’s first—allegedly hack-proof—quantum communications satellite highlights both the remarkable technological advances it has made in space as well as the emerging set of security challenges in this relatively new and uncontested domain. For while scientific discoveries and technological progress in space serve a variety of important civilian purposes, the same advancements have military applications that can tip the global balance of power.

To promote international peace and security the United States and China should pursue scientific cooperation in space, adopt space-based confidence building measures, and develop norms to prohibit the weaponization of space. To begin, the United States must abandon its zero-sum thinking on the development of space technology and repeal legislation that currently prohibits bilateral scientific cooperation with the CNSA. Excluding China out of fear is nurturing distrust and has only pushed it towards working with other eager partners like Russia, the EU, and various developing countries. In addition to improving trust and transparency in the domain of space, working with China would also help defray costs for America’s own underfunded space program. As such the US should proactively sign a space cooperation agreement with China that allows for cooperation in aeronautics research, facilitates scientific exchanges, and identifies potential joint civil space research projects.

Expanding on the existing U.S.-China Civil Space Dialog, both governments should also allow and promote increased contact and visits between space industry leaders, engineers, astronauts/ taikonauts, and scientists from their respective countries. In addition to efforts establishing scientific ties and engaging in space diplomacy both nations should also initiate new space-based confidence building measures.

First, both countries’ space agencies should implement direct data sharing in the important areas of space situational awareness, meteorological observation, and remote-sensing that can help avoid and mitigate disasters in space and on earth. Second, scientists and engineers from both countries ought to take the lead in enumerating a global set of best practices and “rules of the road” for spacefaring activities. These common guidelines would reduce the likelihood of future conflictual situations in space by helping to manage space traffic, coordinating usage of the radio frequency spectrum, and developing standards for the design of sustainable rockets and satellites. Third, space program leaders in both countries should make substantive commitments to collaborating on research projects that could enable joint civilian space operations in the future. While joint space exploration is unlikely to occur in the short term because of policy inertia and distrust, this should not prevent scientists and experts from imagining and coordinating on possible areas for future combined operations. Possible civilian operations that could be researched and evaluated include coordinated space debris cleanups, building interoperable space-based infrastructure, or even asteroid deflection missions. Research collaboration will allow each country to better understand the other’s space capabilities and programs, contributing to an overall environment of trust.

Together, these bilateral confidence building measures will help engender an international space environment that is shared, transparent, and safe. The development of norms prohibiting the weaponization, possibly through international law, will prove a more difficult task because of competing security interests and the vagueness of the definition of a “space weapon.” Space militarization, defined to encompass the use of space for military activities and the passive defense of space assets, seems to already be an accepted activity and should be permitted. That said, space weaponization, to include the deployment of weapons into space and the use of weapons to target space objects, is a far riskier development that the world should try to avoid. Through diplomacy and consultation with other countries with space ambitions, the United States and China will have to arrive at a minimum common understanding of what space weapons are. Such a definition would certainly include orbital weapons systems and space-to-space weapons platforms. To satisfy American concerns about vulnerability to asymmetric attacks on its satellites, such a negotiated normative definition would also have to account for land-based anti satellite weapons and micro/parasitic satellites with anti-satellite capabilities.

Any unilateral weaponization will almost certainly trigger an arms race in space. Such a scenario would elevate the risk of an active military conflict in space that is in no country’s interest. As China approaches a level of parity with the US in its space capabilities, its reliance on space for civil and military purposes will cause it to be equally interested in deterring aggression in space. The accumulation of space debris from attacks on space assets could also trigger a cascading chain reaction known as the Kessler Syndrome which would render near space permanently unsafe and unusable. While the development of an international norm against weaponizing space will no doubt require difficult negotiations and greater trust, such a development would signal a positive shift in the Sino-US relationship. It would also make possible a future binding international agreement regulating space exploration and establishing verifiable limits on military competition in space.

China and the US have worked together on “non-traditional” security threats like narcotics, climate change, and public health epidemics. Although space may seem like another domain where the traditional security dilemma makes cooperation difficult, our experience tells us that this final frontier is ripe for collaboration. Both powers have a   shared security and moral interest in preserving space as a sanctuary for exploration and discovery. In the space domain, it is time for America to abandon its ineffectual policy of trying to isolate other countries. After all, the political divisions of earth, like the Great Wall of China, are not actually visible in outer space.

Timothy Yin is a senior at Georgetown University in the Walsh School of Foreign Service. He is a candidate for honors in international politics with a concentration in international law, institutions, and ethics.