Why is China going into space, other than the fact that it can? Melana Zyla Vickers answers the question.

Behind such ostensibly peaceful ambitions lie more militaristic ones, however. China's spending on defense this year will be $90 billion, according to a Department of Defense report to Congress. Thus, China is the third biggest defense spender in the world after the U.S. and Russia. What's more, China's defense spending has grown by double digits every year for the past decade and a half. Given that China doesn't face any threats in its region, it's clear the country's defense spending, too, is about asserting a position across from the United States, whether in the context of a fight over Taiwan or over something else.

Anti-Satellite Weapons: China is working on systems that could track, identify and destroy U.S. satellites. It is researching ground-based lasers that could fire at a satellite and destroy or damage it, or at least blind a satellite in low-earth orbit.

The U.S. has to pay attention to these developments for one main reason: If the U.S. were ever in a war with China, the U.S. would be heavily dependent on information it gathered from satellites, not least because the U.S. would probably not be fighting on its own turf. If the Chinese disabled U.S. satellites, the attacks could seriously undermine U.S. warfighting capabilities. Indeed, strategists in the Chinese military have written about striking U.S. dominance in space, as well as its "electromagnetic dominance," early in a conflict.

As Freddy Mercury sang, "Jaws was never my scene and I don't like Star Wars." As far as I know, he was referring to the movie and not the anti-missile program, but space weapons may come sooner than later.

Posted by Ryan S. on Thursday, October 13, 2005 at 9:04 AM | Permalink |