{"id":58249,"date":"2026-04-27T07:41:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T07:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innodebt.com\/?p=58249"},"modified":"2026-04-27T07:41:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T07:41:03","slug":"inside-chinas-plans-to-fight-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innodebt.com\/?p=58249","title":{"rendered":"Inside China\u2019s plans to fight in space"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Chinese public statements do not spell out military goals in the domain as bluntly as the US\u2019s \u2014\u00a0Beijing\u2019s 2022 white paper on its space programme emphasises the country\u2019s peaceful approach. But the papers by PLA-affiliated scientists reveal a research and development push in many of the technologies needed for military operations in space. PLA textbooks also discuss in striking detail how China might fight an orbital war.<\/span><\/p>\n

A doctrine shaped by vulnerability<\/h2>\n

Fears about the weaponisation of space can be traced back to the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles in the 1950s, which travel through space on their way to a target.<\/span><\/p>\n

As early as 1996, General Joseph Ashy, the then commander-in-chief of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and Air Force Space Command, said: \u201cIt\u2019s politically sensitive, but it\u2019s going to happen . . .<\/span> we\u2019re going to fight in space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thirty years on, the US and China are in a race to prepare for such a conflict. Both are motivated by the fear that a single strike in space could shut off the central nervous system their economies and militaries rely on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Communications, power grids, navigation systems and financial markets would all collapse without signals relayed by satellites. Equally, modern militaries rely heavily on space for command and control, communications and missile targeting.<\/p>\n

Under the US\u2019s Joint All-Domain Command and Control concept, data from sensors across the country\u2019s forces is supposed to be shared over a single network, with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites playing a key role. That raises the risk that a targeted strike could cripple its surveillance and command systems.<\/span><\/p>\n

Howard Wang, a researcher at the Washington-based think-tank Rand, says the core concept of the PLA\u2019s strategy is to strike key nodes in an adversary\u2019s network to \u201cparalyse\u201d decision-making across the chain, from collecting and transmitting data to analysing and acting on it.<\/span><\/p>\n

China\u2019s drive to build up its military capacity in space also comes from a sense of threat. The country\u2019s space programme is an attempt to counter what it sees as the US\u2019s military advantage in the domain, just as it modernised and expanded its nuclear arsenal partly out of fear that it could be neutralised by US missile defence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Noting the Trump administration\u2019s recent record-breaking request to increase the Pentagon budget \u2014 which would raise US Space Force spending by almost 80 per cent to $76bn next year \u2014 China\u2019s foreign ministry says \u201cwe urge the US side to stop expanding armaments and preparing for war in outer space, and to take concrete actions to safeguard global strategic stability\u201d.<\/p>\n

It denies wanting to engage in a \u201cspace race\u201d with any country, says it does not seek so-called \u201cspace superiority\u201d and adds that it has always \u201copposed the weaponisation of outer space, its transformation into a battlefield, and an arms race\u201d.<\/p>\n

But China has been developing its own capabilities in response.<\/span><\/p>\n

In January 2022, China\u2019s Shijian-21 satellite \u2014 officially launched to test capabilities to remove debris \u2014 used a robotic arm to tow a defunct Beidou navigation satellite into graveyard orbit. US generals were alarmed by Beijing\u2019s ability to seize a satellite in geostationary orbit (GEO) \u2014 some 36,000km from Earth \u2014 and to dispose of it several hundred kilometres above that.<\/span><\/p>\n

A year later, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned that such displays \u201cprove China\u2019s ability to operate future space-based counterspace weapons\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2024, five Chinese experimental satellites, three of the Shiyan-24C type and two others called Shijian-6 05A and B, conducted a series of close-range manoeuvres \u2014 the behaviour the US likened to dogfighting.<\/p>\n

Data from Comspoc, a space analytics company, shows another test in June, when two Chinese satellites took part in a \u201crendezvous operation\u201d in GEO that may have been the first of its kind.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese public statements do not spell out military goals in the domain as bluntly as the US\u2019s \u2014\u00a0Beijing\u2019s 2022 white paper on its space programme emphasises the country\u2019s peaceful approach. But the papers by PLA-affiliated scientists reveal a research and development push in many of the technologies needed for military operations in space. PLA textbooks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-58249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"yoast_head":"\nInside China\u2019s plans to fight in space | Innodebt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chinese public statements do not spell out military goals in the domain as bluntly as the US\u2019s \u2014\u00a0Beijing\u2019s 2022 white paper on its space programme\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/innodebt.com\/?p=58249\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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