Trump’s Space Force is about beating China

Alex Lockie

• In laying out its plans this week for the future of space, the US took a big shot at China’s ambitions.
• The head of the Chinese lunar-exploration program recently described space as if it were the South China Sea, an area Beijing has seized with force and militarized after wrecking the environment to build new islands.
• The US is the only power strong enough to stop Beijing in the South China Sea — or in space.
• Space is full of chokepoints and strategic locations that China could pin down and establish control of.
• The US is locked in a fight to maintain an edge on China to keep space free and open.

When Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday set forth the US’s vision for the future of space exploration and combat, he took a not-so-subtle shot at China, signaling a coming space race between the world’s two biggest powers.

First, Pence brought up a 2007 episode in which China shot down one of its own satellites as a “highly provocative demonstration of China’s growing capability to militarize space” (though the US has satellite-killing missiles too).

But the real dig at China that hints at the future of space conflict came in a more subtle fashion.

“While other nations increasingly possess the capability to operate in space, not all of them share our commitment to freedom, to private property, and the rule of law,” Pence said. “So as we continue to carry American leadership in space, so also will we carry America’s commitment to freedom into this new frontier.”

Pence also mentioned Russia, but one of the “other” nations at the top of Pence’s mind is China, where space exploration has boomed and Beijing has already started talking about celestial bodies as if they’re a birthright.

Here’s Ye Peijian, the head of the Chinese lunar-exploration program, last year:

“The universe is an ocean, the moon is the Diaoyu Islands, Mars is Huangyan Island. If we don’t go there now even though we’re capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants. If others go there, then they will take over, and you won’t be able to go even if you want to. This is reason enough.”