Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

Last week, on the eve of this week’s visit to the United States by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Chief of General Staff Chen Bingde, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) held  a hearing on ‘The Implications of China’s Military and Civil Space Programs’.  We monitor the hearings of the USCC closely, in part because it acts as a bellwether for US-China relations and in part because it invariably musters an impressive collection of witnesses.  Three key points emerged from last week’s hearings.

The first point that stands out is how political this issue has become.  The view from Congress was provided by Rep Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the budgets of NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The political aspect of Wolf’s testimony was apparent from the start.  He opened his remarks by saying: “Before I start, I want to express my sincere disappointment that NASA has not chosen to participate in this important hearing...NASA’s absence is reflective of this administration’s abysmal record on American leadership in space.”

Then, having gone through his reasons as to why investment in space was so important (“the ultimate high ground...investments in NASA have generated entirely new sectors of our economy...”), Wolf returned to the political theme, expressing strong concern about the administration’s “apparent eagerness” to work with China on its space program, which is mostly run by the People’s Liberation Army.  In Wolf’s view, the US “has no business cooperating with the PLA to help develop its space program”.

The second point that stands out from the hearings is that although China still lags far behind the US in space, the determination and direction of its movement is unquestionable.  China believes that the US is seeking to develop “space hegemony”, and in November 2009 President Hu Jintao talked openly about the PLA air force’s requirement for “both offensive and defensive space capabilities”.  Bruce W MacDonald from the United States Institute of Peace called the challenge from China’s expanding capabilities in space an issue “of rising urgency”.  He pointed out: “In the more than four years since China destroyed an aging weather satellite, demonstrating not only an anti-satellite (ASAT) capability but the potential for strategic ballistic missile defence capability as well, it has proceeded to deploy more, and more-advanced, military space capabilities as well.”

China’s ambitions in space are being driven by the usual mix of political calcalculation and national pride, but also by a strong military imperative.  As the current inferior military power, says MacDonald, China has every incentive to develop options for offensive operations against weak points in the US military posture.   The PLA, says MacDonald, wants to greatly weaken US military power in wartime, and “could do so within a decade using its kinetic kill and other ASAT weapons”.

The PLA is investing R&D resources in ground-based radars for engaging targets in space, and a prototype long-range large phased array radar has been used to support missile defence and anti-satellite testing.  It is also investing in electronic countermeasure technologies that could be used to attack satellite communications and navigation satellite signals.

Following on from its successful 2007 ASAT test, in January 2010 China undertook a test in which there was an “exo-atmospheric collision” between two separately launched missiles.  Then, between June and August 2010 two Chinese satellites engaged in orbital rendez-vous manoeuvres that ended with them “bumping” into each other.

China also, of course, wants to develop its space capabilities in order to enhance the strike range and capabilities of the PLA.  Chinese articles have been published in authoritative journals advocating accelerating and expanding China’s space-based surveillance system to cover targets operating out to a range of 3,000km from the coast.

Knowledgeable observers say that the joint China-Russia draft of a treaty for the “Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects” (PPWT) is a diplomatic wrecking ball.  Being unrealistic, it cannot be accepted by the US, yet China can put itself forward as having peaceful intentions in space while giving itself time to play catch-up.  China’s reaction to a recent move by the US and the European Union to promote a draft code of conduct supports this assessment.  MacDonald told the hearing: “In my conversations with Russian and Chinese counterparts, I find serious Russian interest in this approach but sadly only intransigence from China.”

The third point that stands out from the hearings is how incredibly complex the question of space deterrence is becoming.  The complexity arises from a curious combination.  Space assets are incredibly valuable militarily, but they are also incredibly vulnerable, with offence against space assets far more effective than the currently available defensive measures.

This point was most succinctly summarized by Bruce MacDonald, who said: “[The US’s] space-related assets represent extraordinarily appealing targets in any future conflict, and their relative vulnerability can provide dangerously attractive incentives in a crisis to pre-empt, escalating to war.  Resisting this temptation to attack may be morally virtuous but could be strategically unwise: going first in a space conflict with a near-peer space adversary appears to offer many advantages, while absorbing such a strike...appears to be militarily and strategically undesirable.”

The obvious conclusion seems to be that space-dependent warfare has a potentially destabilizing effect in greatly increasing the value of a pre-emptive strike.  And, unlike nuclear weapons, space systems are usable and have been used in recent wars.

Against that, Barry D Watts from the Center for Strategic & Budgetary Assessments, argued that China’s own growing military use of space may constrain its counter-space options in the long-run “to a greater extent than some of our war gaming has suggested”.  His point is this: China’s development of anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) technology is all about providing a deterrent to US carrier battle during any crisis over Taiwan or in the East and South China Seas.  To be effective, China’s ASBM capability requires in-flight target updates from satellites – and thus a strategy of an early pre-emptive strike against US space assets could be counter-productive.  Watts’s “inclination” is that evolving Chinese efforts to exploit US vulnerabilities in space “would be unlikely to produce a decisive advantage over the United States in conflicts in the western Pacific through the end of this decade”.  However, for the post-2020 he just says “it’s very hard to say”.

Another relatively optimistic point was made by Dean Cheng of the Heritage Foundation, who points out that because space systems affect not only military but also economic, political, and diplomatic spheres, damaging an opponent’s space infrastructure will have economic costs beyond those of just replacing satellite systems – and “the combination of first- and second-order effects may be sufficient to persuade an opponent that they cannot attain victory at an acceptable price”.

Unfortunately, Watts also points out, China’s track record of crisis management, including the Belgrade embassy bombing, the EP-3 spy-plane incident, and the more recent fishing-boat incident around the Senkaku/Diaoyutai islands, does not inspire confidence.  JdeC.