Chinese astronauts on a recent spacewalk outside the Tiangong space station. Should the US do more to work with China on topics like human spaceflight and exploration? (credit: Xinhua)

Is the United States doing enough to engage with China on space policy?

by Mariam Kvaratskhelia
Monday, July 29, 2024

While Beijing has accused the United States of turning outer space into “a weapon and a battlefield,”[1] it has no less history of doing the same. China has been interested in counterspace capabilities for years now, developing multiple anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, such as ground-based directed energy weapons (DEWs), satellite jammers, and ASAT missiles targeting low-Earth orbit satellites. The principal goal of these endeavors remains “…asymmetrically disrupting U.S. space operations,”[2] and matching or surpassing the US capabilities in space, according to the Intelligence Community’s Annual Threat Assessment.[3]

While some experts maintain that cooperation with China on space policy should be one of the priorities of the US government, I argue that the latter is doing enough in terms of engagement. Opportunities for cooperation with China are narrow for three principal reasons. First, there is no track record of substantial coordination on space issues with China, and therefore, no history of trust. Second, the US regulatory framework currently in place, namely the Wolf Amendment, already establishes an environment where engagement with China is limited. Third, it is unrealistic to expect that Sino-American cooperation on space policy will soothe general tensions existing between the two nations. The great power competition encompasses virtually every area of the national security policy; therefore, for space partnership with China to bear any tangible outcomes, it must be a part of a greater package of cooperation, not an isolated policy goal of its own.

There is a widespread tendency today to vouch for a closer Sino-American engagement on space issues based on the example of the Cold War Soviet-American partnership. The 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) is widely regarded as a “catalyst for East-West détente.”[4] Therefore, importing this line of thinking into a discussion about China implies that increased engagement on space issues with the latter will a priori result in a less tense strategic environment.

This comparison is flawed for three main reasons. First, there is an argument to be made that during the fall of the Soviet Union, because the country was in a weak position, it was in its own interests to cooperate with the United States. The US, too, benefited from diverting Russian talent and money to shared projects like the International Space Station (ISS), as it meant that Soviets would not work on developing individual military capacities. Second, it must be kept in mind that despite the historical handshake of 1975, Moscow resumed testing ASAT weapons in space shortly afterwards, which more generally suggests that there is no direct correlation between joint projects and maintained trust. Third, the Apollo-Soyuz project set the stage for future space policy dynamics with Russia. This is why we have seen instances like Roscosmos-NASA collaboration even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, despite the general hostility between two countries.[5]

The same cannot be said for China: Beijing is not in a weak position, which means that any joint project that the US pursues with China can easily bite back. Additionally, there is no history of Sino-American cooperation on space issues, which in of itself is derived from a lack of trust between the two. China has a record of intellectual property (IP) theft since the 1990s, examples that include Hughes Electronics Corp., Loral Space & Communications, and Lockheed Martin Corp. scandals.[6] More recently, in 2019, a Chinese national was caught smuggling export-controlled components of US technology used in spacecraft.[7] Aside from IP theft, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been working on developing ASAT and precision strike capabilities for destroying satellites in low and geosynchronous orbits,[8] pointing at the fact that “Beijing conceives of outer space as a critical warfighting domain.”[9] Dean Cheng brilliantly notes that China prioritizes “deterrence through space” over “deterrence in space,”[10] which further highlights that, aside from wanting to establish leadership beyond terrestrial limits, Beijing is willing to use space for offensive as well as defensive purposes. All this, combined with China’s overall image as an authoritarian state, creates lack of trust on the part of the US, which is a reasonable ground to not pursue further engagement.

The United States’ lack of trust is reflected in regulatory frameworks in place. The Wolf Amendment, introduced in 2011 by former Rep. Frank Wolf, prohibits NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from cooperating with China without prior authorization. This legislation was essentially a precautionary measure taken by the US Congress to mitigate growing risks of China’s IP theft. In one interview, Wolf noted that “China has more to learn from the U.S. than we have to learn from them... So any cooperation would mean they take from us, not that we take from them.”[11] Of course the Wolf Amendment does not mean that there is no prospect at all of NASA working with Chinese counterparts; it simply means that the FBI would have to assess risks of sharing information with Chinese entities prior to authorizing.

There is a counterargument to be made based on these restrictions. Some argue that had China been more involved in these US-led international missions, it would have been deterred from establishing its own space station and/or building advanced space capabilities.[12,13] By creating such a polarized space policy environment, opponents say the US could even lose some of its allies and partners to China. But Chinese intentions have been clear to us from the beginning: they are aimed at challenging US leadership in space and achieving a “world-class status in all but a few space technology areas.”[14] It would be irrational to believe that more engagement with China would eradicate Beijing’s existing intentions, or that these intentions stem from a lack of engagement. The question, therefore, becomes: is China willing to cooperate to begin with? Its aggressive space policy and ambitions raise skeptical answers.

Another question worthy of addressing involves the intended end goal of more engagement. Some forms of cooperation to deconflict space can be beneficial for short-term and micro-scale objectives, but hoping that it will ease the general animosity between China and the US is shortsighted and unreasonable. Aaron Bateman rightly notes that space activities are not “free of geopolitical machinations” and are “just another vehicle for promoting a state’s interest.”[15] In other words, the space domain does not exist in a political vacuum. To borrow an example from the Cold War again, one can argue that space cooperation did not cause improvement of Soviet-American relations, but vice versa.

Competition is its own form of engagement too. The United States is doing enough to engage with China, and bringing space partnership at the forefront of the agenda would be devoid of meaning. In this discussion, it is important that we ask the following questions:

1. Considering Chinese ambitions of becoming the leader in space exploration, is Beijing interested in space policy cooperation to begin with? Would it have to give up on its leadership aspirations and accept a power equilibrium with the US., or even a position of inferiority to the latter? What is either party gaining from this partnership?
2. Taking into account China’s track record of intellectual property theft, in addition to its lack of history of cooperation with the US on space issues, how can the US trust Beijing with joint projects and information sharing?
3. What is the overarching end goal of space policy cooperation, considering that improving broader geopolitical relationships requires addressing a bigger and more diverse set of military and non-military domains?

Answering these questions helps draw a cost-benefit analysis, which in case of this paper’s argument skews more towards costs than benefits. The US must focus on advancing its own technological capabilities to ensure zero-sum competition in the years to come, while also eradicating any power vacuums that can potentially be filled by China.

References

1. Ed Browne, “China Accuses U.S. Of Turning Outer Space Into 'a Weapon and a Battlefield,'” Newsweek (July 2022).
2. Oscar Glaese, “China’s Directed Energy Weapons and Counterspace Applications,” The Diplomat (June 2022).
3. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community” (February 2023).
4. Andrew Jenks, “U.S.-Soviet Handshakes in Space and the Cold War Imaginary,” MIT Press Direct (May 2021).
5. The Guardian, “Russians and American share spacecraft despite nations’ enmity over Ukraine” (September 2022).
6. Vernon Loeb, “Lockheed Accused of Giving Data on Rockets to China,” Los Angeles Times (April 2000).
7. Justin Rohrlich and Tim Fernholz, “China is trying to steal military space tech. The US is running stings to stop it,” Quartz (September 2019).
8. U.S. Department of Defense, “2023 Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” (2023).
9. Christopher A. Ford, “Arms Control in Outer Space: History and Prospects,” Arms Control and International Security Papers 1, no. 12 (July 2020), 4.
10. Dean Cheng, “Are we ready to meet the Chinese space challenge?” SpaceNews (July 2017).
11. Jacqueline Feldscher, “Biden space advisers urge cooperation with China,” Politico (December 2020).
12. Makena Young, “Bad Idea: The Wolf Amendment (Limiting Collaboration with China in Space)” Defense 360 (December 2019).
13. Aaron Bateman, “The Prospects for United States–China Space Cooperation are Limited,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (June 2023).
14. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.”
15. Aaron Bateman, “The Prospects for United States–China Space Cooperation are Limited.”

Mariam Kvaratskhelia is a recent graduate of Georgetown University's Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) program, specializing in transatlantic security, defense and nuclear strategy. She has more than eight years of experience in academic research, writing, and project management.

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