25 July 2020, NIICE Commentary 5629
Dr. Namrata Goswami
Grand strategy is defined as “the highest level of national statecraft that establishes how states, or other political units, prioritize and mobilize which military, diplomatic, political, economic, and other sources of power to ensure what they perceive as their interests. Depending on one’s theoretical perspective, these perceived interests focus the most minimal goal of ensuring the state’s survival, pursuing specific domestic interests or ideational coalitions, or establishing a specific regional or global order [emphasis added]”.
For China, ‘establishing a specific regional or global order’ is prioritized as an important outcome of achieving leadership in outer-space. President Xi Jinping highlights the significance of outer-space for China’s national rejuvenation and economic development in his conceptualization of China’s space dream. China’s space dream, which is a component of the larger China Dream, is now inscribed into the People’s Republic of China (PRC) constitution. President Xi elected himself ‘President for life’ to ensure continual focus and resource commitment to such future cutting edge technologies like space, artificial intelligence (AI), 5G, robotics and quantum mechanics. China has emerged as the global leader in AI, quantum, 5G, and spends about USD409 billion on Research and Development (R&D), amounting to 21 percent of the total global R&D spending, a near second to the US who spends about $496 billion on R&D (26 percent of global spending). China spends approximately USD8 billion on its state funded space program. Compared to the US 2020 space budget for NASA (USD22.6 billion), China’s space budget appears much smaller, but the cost of labor, employment, manufacturing and maintenance of space systems in the US is much higher. So, the return on investment for a smaller budget is actually higher in China.
Space Capacity
China is aimed at building space capacity to achieve certain long-term space goals. The space capacities that China is focusing on are: developing capability to send humans to space and showcasing human sustainable space presence, demonstrating its Anti-Satellite (ASAT) capability, establishing sustainable presence on the Moon, and establishing a permanent presence in space via its space station. One of the critical components for a successful space faring nation is to possess space launch capacity. This includes both reusable and heavy lift space rockets. China is investing in a reusable rocket via its private space company ispace’s Hyperbola 2 rocket that is scheduled for launch in 2021. China’s Long March 9 (2030) is being built with a lift capacity of 140 metric tons to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and 50 metric tons to Lunar Transfer Orbit (LTO). This is aimed at launching some of China’s future missions like the construction of Space Based Solar Power (SBSP) satellites in LEO (2030) and a lunar base (2036). China is also investing in the game changing space nuclear propulsion technology. Nuclear propulsion is superior to chemical propulsion, since it can go further and faster on less fuel. The timeline set for China’s nuclear propelled space craft is 2040.
China has already demonstrated three such capacities, including human presence in LEO through its Tiangong space station, traveling to the lunar orbit and robotic soft landings on the Moon, an ability to then go to a completely different orbit and fly past an asteroid, Toutatis with its Chang’e 2, and its 2007 ASAT test. China is in the process of developing the permanent space presence capacity with its permanent space station, Tianhe. On 23 July 2020, China successfully launched to Mars to independently orbit, descend and land on the Martian surface, a critical prestige demonstration capability for space faring nations. If China’s Mars mission successfully enters Martian orbit in February 2021, and then descends, soft lands and releases its rover into Mars’ surface with its communications intact, this feat by itself, will prove to be an astropolitical coup for China. For purposes of independent military command and control, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, precision missile guidance and tracking, China completed the launch of its independent and self-reliant global navigation satellite system (GNSS) in June 2020. The BeiDou system offers an alternative to the US Space Force-maintained Global Positioning System (GPS). An independent BeiDou offers China augmented precision navigation and timing (PNT) for its military space forces. China has an integrated People’s Liberation Army Strategic Support Force (PLASSF) for space and cyber established under President Xi’s direction in 2015.
Space Goals
China’s space goals include the following: continuously develop its capacity for cislunar access (space between Earth and the Moon), deep space probes to include mission to Mars and asteroid mining, and independent military command and control. Given Chinese senior space policy makers and Communist Party of China (CPC) members like Bao Weimin have articulated goals for a USD10 trillion Earth Moon economic zone by 2050, China has identified the development of a lunar base by 2036. A lunar base will offer several advantages to China. For one, launching from the Moon requires 22 times less energy than launching from Earth, the deepest gravity well in the inner solar system. The Moon has resources like Helium 3, vital for development of nuclear fusion, water that could sustain life and be utilized as rocket propellant, and rare earth elements like platinum and titanium. Low-cost reusable access to the Moon enables sufficient volume to begin local mining and processing of lunar regolith for structural materials. China’s space vision is to utilize lunar resources to build solar power satellites, which in turn will power their lunar base as part of their deep space transportation infrastructure. Another of China’s space goal is to invest in space mining and extraction capabilities especially from asteroids. John Lewis in his book Mining the Sky offers an estimate of why asteroid mining is profitable. Lewis estimated that 3554 Amun, an asteroid two kilometers in surface area possessed USD20 trillion in iron, cobalt and nickel. Consequently, space mining has been identified as a key space goal to include deep space probes as per China’s 2016 White paper on space. On the military side, China is building its space capacity since the 1991 Gulf War where realization dawned within China’s strategic circles that US military command and control structure is so dependent on its military space support systems that it contained within it, seeds of vulnerability for the US. Specifically, in a situation where US conventional military superiority vis-a-vis China is total. Since China cannot compete with the US conventionally, investing in military space capacity offers its asymmetric advantage in which its ASAT capability can threaten US military’s heavy dependence on space for its GPS, PNT, intelligence and reconnaissance. A similar situation can play out in the China-India border conflict where space support systems will play a key role in precision location, reconnaissance, intelligence and PNT.
In conclusion, for China, space is a critical component of its comprehensive grand strategy, and to establish itself as a lead player by 2049, the centennial celebration year of the establishment of the PRC. In April 2020, the China National Development and Reform Commission added space infrastructure to its list of “new infrastructure” directing government prioritization and investment. For the near and long term, technologies like space, AI, robotics and quantum will remain the key focus for China. These technological innovations and investments will be critical for expanding the legitimacy of the CPC for an internal and external audience in the COVID-19 and post COVID-19 contexts. China will utilize its advantages in space for diplomatic influence, especially through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with a membership spanning countries in Africa, Latin America, Europe, to include NATO members like Italy and Greece. Recently, NATO founding member Luxembourg signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China resulting in Bank of China investing USD500 million BRI bond in the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. China’s Belt and Road Space Information Corridor offer its space launch systems to countries that do not have that capacity on discounted launch prices. Consequently, China’s space power will translate into influence where such investments will have a deep effect on how countries perceive and sign onto a China led international order. The world needs to seriously grapple with this scenario.
