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Sunday, July 15, 2007 (SF Chronicle)
CHINA'S RACE TO SPACE/China looking skyward for a military advantage over U.S. space program
Greg Autry, Peter Navarro
During the Middle Ming Dynasty (circa 1500), a star-crossed Chinese
official named Wan Hu attempted to become the world's first astronaut when
he constructed a magnificent flying chair outfitted with 47
gunpowder-filled rockets and two kites for wings. After a giant explosion
at "lift-off," neither the rocket chair nor the daring official was seen
again.
Since then, China has traveled light years in its pursuit of the far
reaches of space. In recent years, the Chinese National Space
Administration has announced bold plans for a permanent space station,
moon colony and Mars mission. The nation is rapidly rolling out a massive
space-related infrastructure that includes a fourth space launch center, a
powerful new line of launch vehicles, a fleet of deepwater space tracking
ships, and ground stations established in Chinese client nations across
the globe.
But as China makes its heavenly ascents, will it be a friend or foe?
Premier Wen Jiabao announced in the People's Daily that "we are willing to
join hands with people all over the world for peaceful use of space," but
the country's actions haven't always reflected that.
In January, in a space shot heard 'round the world, China shot down one of
its own satellites. This anti-satellite weapons test not only created a
giant hazardous debris field in space, it also served as a wake-up call to
the potential gravity of the Chinese space threat.
One of the biggest threats is the anti-satellite weapons themselves.
Both the U.S. economy and military depend heavily on a complex network of
more than 400 orbiting satellites that provide everything from
reconnaissance and navigation to communication and information. The crown
jewel of this network is the world's only fully functional Global
Positioning System, whose services the United States offers for free to
the world.
Using the vantage point of space and its technological edge in weaponry,
America has been able to fight a number of wars with decidedly
asymmetrical casualties. During the 1991 Gulf War, for example, fewer than
150 Americans died in combat compared with enemy deaths in the tens of
thousands.
America's leveraging of the ultimate strategic high ground has not gone
unnoticed by China. Since the Gulf War, Chinese military analysts have
realized that U.S. space superiority undermines their long-held strategy
of "human wave" troop strength. And as evidenced in the writings of
Chinese military strategists, one way to neutralize this superiority is to
destroy or disable what is a highly vulnerable U.S. satellite network by
using "satellite killer" weapons such as the one China tested in January.
The "kinetic kill vehicle" used in the January test is not the only weapon
China has in its arsenal. As reported in Jane's Defence Weekly, China has
been covertly testing high-energy lasers capable of melting the optical
systems of a satellite as well as the solar panels that power it.
At greatest immediate risk from China's satellite killers is Taiwan, which
China considers a renegade province. Within the hawkish wing of the
People's Liberation Army, some argue that a preemptive strike on U.S.
surveillance satellites would impair American forces long enough for China
to quickly retake Taiwan. Before a U.S. counterstrike could be launched,
Chinese forces would dig in to defensive positions, rendering retaking of
the island extremely costly. In this view, a defanged America would learn
its lesson about interfering in Chinese affairs.
While knocking out America's satellite network might alone be sufficient
to allow the retaking of Taiwan, China also views the construction of its
own network, particularly its own GPS system, as an integral part of its
broader military strategy to safeguard its own territory, assert itself as
a regional power in Asia, and to ensure its right of access to resources
around the globe -- from Persian Gulf oil and African precious metals to
Brazilian iron ore and Cuban nickel.
China calls its budding GPS system Beidou, named after the star formation
that represents a rice scooper to the Chinese and that we know as the Big
Dipper. There is little doubt that Beidou is ultimately being built for
military purposes.
First, the U.S. GPS system works very well in China, and it is fully
available at no charge to Chinese civilian, government and commercial
users. Second, China argues that its own system will be technically
superior to America's, but given China's technical lag, an improvement in
accuracy is unlikely and economically unjustifiable. Third, China argues
that it needs a backup to the U.S. system in case it fails -- but the only
likely cause of failure would be the result of an attack by another
nation.
Of course, the other reason China might need a backup is in time of war;
as operator of the GPS system, the United States reserves the right to
disable enemy access to the system. That's at least partly why China has
prepared to utilize the Russians' Glonass GPS system currently being
deployed, while also investing 200 million euros in the European Galileo
GPS project.
The broader point is this: With a proven, free U.S. solution and Russian
and European backups in production, the primary purpose of Beidou is for
the support of offensive military applications and the use of
precision-guided weaponry that might be so distasteful that all three GPS
providers would shut China down.
The wedding of China's Beidou GPS system to its ever increasing array of
sophisticated weaponry poses an additional threat that reaches far beyond
any possible military conflict between China and the United States: the
selling of missiles to rogue nations around the world.
Consider the Middle East. When the United States invaded Iraq in 1991,
Saddam Hussein lobbed Scud missiles toward Israeli cities. Although these
highly inaccurate weapons resulted in few casualties, it would be another
thing entirely for Iran or Syria to buy from the Chinese weapons bazaar
the capability to accurately hit Jewish population centers, government
buildings, Israeli troops and military installations. In this vein, it
should also be noted that Chinese-supplied munitions routinely find their
way from Iran to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon for use against Israel.
Most of these concerns pale in comparison to the threat of orbital nuclear
weapons. In this case, the Chinese space program lacks the transparency of
the U.S. program. Each secretive Shenzhou spacecraft is capable of leaving
behind an 8-by-9-foot orbital module that can contain anything from
observation equipment to what might quickly become a string of nuclear
bombs in low Earth orbit that could be dropped without notice.
Consider this in the context of a statement from Chinese Col. Jia Junming
in his 2005 publication Joint Space War Campaigns: "Our future space
weapons program should be low profile and 'intense internally' but relaxed
in external appearance to maintain our good international image and
position."
Unlike intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are launched from land
or sea by powerful rockets, orbital warheads can simply be "nudged" down
with no telltale boost-phase infrared flare. Already at the top of their
trajectory, they avoid a slow assent phase and arrive on target quickly.
Consequently they are virtually unstoppable by missile defense systems.
The sum of all these fears calls for careful U.S. observation of all
Chinese space efforts and serious attention to America's slipping
superiority in space technology. The United States may not, however, be
without blame in triggering a space race with China.
In October, the Bush administration declared a Monroe Doctrine for space:
that U.S. freedom of action in space is as important as air and sea power
and that the United States reserves the right to "deny such freedom of
action to adversaries."
From the Chinese space hawk perspective, this provocative declaration
represents just one more step toward the inevitable militarization of
space -- an inevitability driven by a hegemonic superpower that holds the
ultimate strategic high ground and has vowed to engage in preemptive
warfare to defend that ground. Accordingly, the Chinese hawks believe they
have no choice but to engage in a military space race both to preserve
Chinese sovereignty and, eventually, to project what they see as China's
rightful regional and eventual global power.
As China reaches for the stars, it is both ironic and dangerous that the
United States space program continues its parabolic fade amid budget cuts,
internal scandal, interminable shuttle delays and an aging NASA brain
trust no longer able to innovate. Meanwhile, America's domestic aerospace
engineering talent base continues to rapidly decay. The collateral
problem, of course, is that as the United States keeps its eyes focused on
the Middle East, China may be moving to a deep space checkmate. The
admonition "don't play checkers in a chess world" may be particularly
relevant now for U.S. policymakers and military strategists.
Greg Autry is a lecturer on business strategy and entrepreneurship at UC
Irvine. Peter Navarro is a UCI business professor and author of "The
Coming China Wars" (Financial Times, 2006). They are working on a book
about the U.S.-China space race. Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2007 SF Chronicle
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