China S Strategy In Space

This book addresses why China is going into space and provides up- to-date information on all aspects of the Chinese Space Program in terms of launch vehicles, launch sites and infrastructure, crew vehicles for space exploration, satellite applications and scientific exploration capabilities. Beyond mere capabilities, it is important to understand how Chinese aerospace leaders think, how they make decisions, and what their ultimate goal is during their space endeavors. What are Chinese intentions in space? To what extent does culture and ethics influence Chinese strategic decision-making within the highest levels of the aerospace industrial complex? This book examines these questions and offers four potential scenarios on where the Chinese space program is headed based on this new perspective of understanding China’s space goals. This book is not only required reading for policy makers and military leaders in the US government, but also for the general population, students, and professionals interested in truly understanding the reasons behind what the Chinese are doing in space.

The Chinese government is using space power to increase its influence at home and abroad and hopes to leverage the political, economic, and military benefits of space to become a great power. The ambivalent nature of the U.S.-China relationship, however, assures that over the long term China's rise as a space power will present challenges to the United States. Militarily, China's improved remote sensing capabilities and launch tempos require the U.S. military to prepare to counteract China's use of space in a potential conflict over Taiwan. Commercially, China's lower labor costs and mercantilist approach to space could establish China as a competitive market force. Politically, U.S. diplomats must recognize the role Chinese space activities plays in diplomacy and be prepared to ameliorate cooperative activities that impinge on U.S. national security. Despite these drawbacks, cooperation with China cannot be ruled out. Cooperation can improve scientific research, increase safety, and make an opaque program more transparent, but should not directly improve China's military or commercial capabilities. Consequently, the U.S. response to China's rise as a space power should take a balanced approach in which challenges are managed and opportunities exploited.

This volume explains the beginnings and expansion of China's space program, analyzing how China is now able to hold such ambitions and how the interaction between technology, politics and economics has influenced the Chinese space program. It opens by tracing out the earlier development of the space program and identifying the successes and problems that plagued this initial effort, later focusing upon its development over the past decade and into the future. As China is now able to reach into outer space with its machines and, since 2003, with its humans, the authors examine how this move from a non-participant status to a state operating at the highest level of space activities has confirmed its potential place as the new economic and military superpower of the twenty-first century. They also demonstrate how recent successes mean that China is now confronted by an issue previously encountered by other space ‘powers’, such as the United States and the former Soviet Union: what is the value of the space program, given its high costs and likelihood of dramatic failure? Chinese Space Policy will be of great interest to students of space studies, Chinese politics, security studies, and international relations in general.

This book offers an overview of space strategy in the 21st century. The purpose of space strategy is to coordinate, integrate, and prioritize space activities across security, commercial, and civil sectors. Without strategy, space activities continue to provide value, but it becomes difficult to identify and execute long-term programs and projects and to optimize the use of space for security, economic, civil, and environmental ends. Strategy is essential for all these ends since dependence on, and use of, space is accelerating globally and space is integrated in the fabric of activities across all sectors and uses. This volume identifies a number of areas of concern pertinent to the development of national space strategy, including: intellectual foundations; political challenges; international cooperation and space governance; space assurance and political, organizational, and management aspects specific to security space strategy. The contributing authors expand their focus beyond that of the United States, and explore and analyse the international developments and implications of national space strategies of Russia, China, Europe, Japan, India, Israel, and Brazil. This book will be of much interest to students of space power and politics, strategic studies, foreign policy and International Relations in general.

This is an informational report on China's space activities in 2016. The Chinese government holds the space industry as essential to the country's general development strategy. It sticks to exploring and utilizing outer space for peaceful purposes. This work was put together to tell people about their actions and plans. Contents include: Preamble Purposes, Vision and Principles of Development Major Developments Since 2011 Major Tasks for the Next Five Years Policies and Measures for Development International Exchanges and Cooperation Conclusion

This book is about China’s ambitions in its most complex and internationally visible space endeavor, namely its human space exploration programme. It provides a comprehensive reflection on China ́s strategic direction and objectives in space, including in particular those set forth in its human spaceflight programme and analyses the key domestic and external factors affecting the country’s presumed manned lunar ambitions. The objective of the book is to disentangle the opportunities and challenges China ́s space ambitions are creating for other spacefaring nations and for Europe in particular. It therefore includes an in-depth analysis of possible European postures towards China in space exploration and seeks to stimulate a debate on future space strategies in the broader context of world politics.

China has emerged as a major regional power and has clear aspirations to be a global power in the not too distant future. Comprehensive military modernisation programs, sustained economic, scientific and technological developments have substantially elevated China’s international profile. For the past three decades, China has been modernising its strategic weaponry and enhancing the capabilities of its nuclear warheads. It has also been developing new and complex military platforms that would be of great value to joint operations warfare. The decade from 2011 through 2020 will prove critical to the PLA as it attempts to integrate many new and complex platforms, and to adopt modern operational concepts, including network-centric warfare. China’s air force is in the midst of a transformation. A decade ago, it was an antiquated service equipped almost exclusively with weapons based on 1950s-era Soviet designs and operated by personnel with questionable training according to outdated employment concepts. Today, the PLAAF appears to be on its way to becoming a modern, highly capable air force for the 21st century. The PLA Air Force has continued expanding its inventory of long-range, advanced SAM systems and now possesses one of the largest such forces in the world. The January 2011 flight test of China’s next generation fighter prototype, the J-20, highlights China’s ambition to produce a fighter aircraft that incorporates stealth attributes, advanced avionics, and super-cruise capable engines over the next several years. China is upgrading its B-6 bomber fleet with a new, longer-range variant that will be armed with a new long-range cruise missile. China’s aviation industry is developing several types of airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft. These include the KJ-200, based on the Y-8 airframe, for AWACS as well as intelligence collection and maritime surveillance, and the KJ-2000, based on a modified Russian IL-76 airframe. China can decisively defeat India in any nuclear confrontation, but is currently unable to match the IAF in any conventional conflict, specifically along the border region of the Himalayas. Also, the IAF has greater experience than PLAAF in actual combat operations with its many conflicts; India is gradually building powerful military capabilities in tune with its expanding geopolitical interests, even as the eastern and western fronts are being strengthened to deter the twin Pakistan-China threat. IAF is on the path to transform into a true aerospace power with the capability to rapidly deploy and operate at great distances. As for the two-front challenge, apart from progressively basing Sukhoi-30MKI fighters and missile squadrons in the two theatres, the plan also includes upgrading the airfields and advanced landing grounds in the sectors in order to give both defensive and offensive options. It is important for India to realise the relevance of Chinese achievements in space technologies and to critically view and analyse Chinese achievements in the area of manned space missions In order to achieve further success in the space arena, developments in cryogenic technology are important for India. These should be pursued in order to develop the capability of launching 4-5 ton satellites, which will help in achieving a greater commercial edge. Programmes like moon and mars missions, using robotic technologies, are also important in order to know more about the nature of resources, especially minerals, available on these bodies and undertaking their mining. It is also important to work towards launching satellites for India’s armed forces, which will help gain an advantage over adversaries. The book is an attempt to analyse the strategic importance of rising economic, political and military stature of China with a view to understand its regional and global implications in a new world order. As a rational actor in a chaotic world, China will defend its security interests at all costs. Besides undertaking a comprehensive modernisation of its armed forces, China is developing a series of offensive space capabilities while advocating the peaceful use of outer space. The book will be of immense value not only to the readers of the countries in the immediate neighbourhood of China, but to the strategic community across the globe since rise of China and other major Asian players including India will shape the strategic international environment in the decades to come during this century. It is hoped that the book will contribute to the understanding of the growing importance of integration of air and space and the fact that aerospace has truly become the new theatre of war and thereby establishing a new milestone in mankind’s history of warfare. The unifying space dimension will remain the single most important source for information and communication which can be used in multiple forms. Hence, China’s aerospace strategy and its implications for India assume greater military importance.

This book comprehensively covers the history and current developments of space programme of China. It presents the complete story of China's space programme from its origins through to present day activities on the International Space Station. This monograph further discusses the role of China's space strategy in its emergence as a major power on the world stage. The book also presents the context of China's space programme within the larger narrative of international space development. The book binds together the diverse political, military, economic and technology aspects into a coherent understanding and explains their role in the establishment and growth of Chinese space programme. Given the contents, this book will be a valuable source of information for students, researchers, and historians in the area of space studies.