President Trump’s decision to establish a “Space Force” could create a military competition in outer space, the Chinese Foreign Ministry warned Tuesday.
“China always advocates the peaceful use of outer space and opposes the placement of weapons and an arms race in outer space,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters. “In particular, we oppose turning outer space into a battlefield.”
Trump issued a directive to establish a sixth military branch on Monday, in order to secure “American dominance in space.” The idea, which would remove U.S. military space capabilities from the Air Force, has drawn opposition from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. But the administration is also worried that China and Russia see American satellites as a vulnerable linchpin of the U.S. military.
“When it comes to defending America, it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space,” Trump said. “We must have American dominance in space.”
Military and intelligence officials are alarmed by Chinese and Russian efforts to develop effective anti-satellite weaponry to wreak havoc on GPS systems and other satellite-based technologies used by the Pentagon and the private sector, in the event of a future conflict.
[Also read: Armed services committees caught off guard by Trump’s Space Force order]
“[T]hey understand the dependencies that we have on space, and so they’re developing capabilities for how to counter that, whether it’s a direct-energy weapon that is terrestrial, whether it is a co-orbital attack satellite, whether it’s jamming from the ground,” Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, the Defense Intelligence Agency director, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March.
Still, Mattis discouraged congressional Republicans from establishing a new military branch last year. “I oppose creation of a new military service and additional organizational layers at a time when we are focused on reducing overhead and integrating joint warfighting functions,” he wrote in an October letter.
China sounded an idealistic note. “Outer space is all humanity’s property,” Shuang said. “We hope that all parties could work together to ensure that outer space will forever be peaceful and tranquil.”
