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Chinese officials have expressed a growing concern that U.S. space and missile defense plans will stimulate a costly and destabilizing arms race. In particular, the prevailing view in Beijing is that the United States seeks to neutralize China's strategic nuclear deterrent, freeing itself to intervene in China's affairs and undermining Beijing's efforts to prod Taiwan to reunify. If U.S. plans are left unchecked, therefore, Beijing may feel compelled to respond by introducing its own space weapons.
Beijing, however, would prefer to avoid this outcome. Chinese officials argue that weaponizing space is in no state's interest, while continued peaceful exploitation redounds to the benefit of all states. Rather than battling over space, China wants countries to craft an international ban on space weaponization.
U.S. Moves Toward Space Weaponization
China's concerns are prompted by evidence that U.S. moves toward space weaponization are gaining momentum. In January 2001, a congressionally mandated space commission headed by Donald Rumsfeld, who is now secretary of defense, recommended that "the U.S. government should vigorously pursue the capabilities called for in the National Space Policy to ensure that the president will have the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats to, and, if necessary, defend against attacks on U.S. interests."1
Moreover, the U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 has given the United States a free hand to move forward with missile defenses, and spacebased missile defenses are envisioned as part of the U.S. mix. In the clearest official sign yet of support for space weaponization, last year the U.S. Air Force publicized its vision of how "counterspace operations" could help achieve and maintain "space superiority," the "freedom to attack as well as the freedom from attack" in space.2
Already the United States is pursuing a number of military systems3 that could be used to attack targets in space from Earth or targets on Earth from space. To China, current U.S. deployment of a GroundBased Midcourse Missile Defense system S represents an intentional first step toward space weaponization.4 China experts argue that the interceptors of the system based in Alaska and California could be used to attack satellites.5
After all, such systems could be easily adapted to target satellites, which are more fragile and more predictable than ballistic missile...