US chases shooting stars over China

2012-05-05 (China Military News cited from atimes.com and by Benjamin A Shobert) -- Few parts of the American mythology resonate more deeply in popular consciousness than the Cold War-era space race.

Americans recall with a certain fondness a time when the country led the world in manned space exploration, a group of accomplishments set in motion only after the Soviet Union shocked the world with its Sputnik launch.

Even today, during one of President Barack Obama's recent State of the Union addresses, he harkened back to this moment as an example of America's ability to come together and rally after being surprised by a foreign competitor, except this time it would be in an effort to build consensus domestically for a focused effort to match China's immense energies in the clean-tech and high-speed rail areas.

Beyond this point, China's financial ability to entertain manned space travel

As China continues to develop as a nation-state, it was inevitable that at some point its path forward would drive it to develop its own space strategy. It was similarly inevitable that as China began to do so, its plans would come to be interpreted as additional reason to question the country's intentions.

For those predisposed to distrusting Beijing, China's plans for space would be additional fuel to the fire regarding their view of China as a strategic competitor. Beyond this point, China's financial ability to entertain manned space travel stand! s in sha rp contrast to American and European fiscal situations where space exploration is likely to be one of many inevitable budget sacrifices.

A recent report, "China's Evolving Space Capabilities: Implications for US Interests" was commissioned by the Congressional US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). Released last week, the report acknowledges the important role space plays in a nation's conception of itself as a "great power".

As the report's authors Mark Stokes and Dean Chen with the Project 2049 Institute write, "... since the Cold War, space technology has been viewed as a metric of political legitimacy, national power, and status within the international community."

The next step in American and Chinese competition was made all but certain when Yang Liwei became the first Chinese ever to be launched into space in 2003. With this achievement, China signaled to the world both its intention of becoming a "great power", as well as its desire to pursue a national strategy of its own making in space, just as the United States and Soviet Union had done before.

This recognition that it was simply a question of "when" and not "if" China would develop a competitive space strategy as that of the United States, European Union and Russia is helpful; however, the inherent dual-use nature to much of any nation's space-based assets make a balanced approach difficult. The report acknowledges this early on when its authors write, "China's space ambitions are in part peaceful in nature. Yet technologies can also be used with ill intent."

What ill intent is most troubling to American policymakers? Simply put, the ability of China's space strategy to deny access to American military resources in the event of a conflict over Taiwan.

Last week's report makes no effort to deflect this concern; in fact, the report asserts that China's space policy would play an essential role if such a situation were to occur. While the authors of the report make no claim that such a momen! t is eit her imminent or likely, their concern is obvious. As they put it, "Because Taiwan's democratic system of government - an alternative to mainland China's authoritarian model - presents an existential challenge to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party], the PLA [People's Liberation Army] relies on military coercion to compel concessions on sovereignty."

Space-based assets would provide several critical advantages in the event of a conflict in the Strait of Formosa. First, China's space-based monitoring capabilities have significantly increased and improved, with a particular eye towards what are known as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites.

SAR capability allows China to "operate night or day in all weather conditions, and are therefore well-suited for detection of ships in a wide area". The report adds, "As Chinese engineers have noted, SAR imagery is key for automated target recognition of ships at sea."