Space Economics

Sino-US competition, and even conflict, in space seems increasingly likely in light of recent anti-satellite events. Advancing the cause of non-weaponization of space has long been limited by the scope of discussions. This article recommends to the incoming US administration a bargaining strategy that encompasses wider issues, increasing the possibility of circumventing this impasse and achieving improved security for US space systems by forestalling an anti-satellite arms race. Including commercial space and civil space issues in discussions with China on space security, in a type of “grand bargain” negotiation, may lead to agreement between the parties on a code of conduct in space. Simultaneously taking certain hedging positions against default may improve the US bargaining position and increase the likelihood of compliance.

The 2011 directive on military training was just released by the General Staff Department (GSD) of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on January 14. The new guidance represents a roadmap for the Chinese military's training year, and could offer important indicators about PLA military planning priorities and evolving threat perceptions (Xinhua News Agency, January 14). In general, PLA training in the coming year appears poised to continue experimentation and modification of force structures to accomplish the long-term objectives of preparing the Chinese armed forces (PLA, People’s Armed Police, and militia), supported by civilian capabilities, to execute longer-distance joint operations for deterrence, warfighting, and non-traditional security missions under complex electromagnetic conditions.

China's entree into the elite club of spacefaring nations has garnered a variety of reactions, from yawns to yahoos. As a lifelong space cadet, I'm firmly in the latter camp, but as a concerned American and a student of international relations, I must also confess a tremor of trepidation. What are China's intentions in space? Should we be afraid? And how should the United States respond?

On Feb. 20, the USS Lake Erie successfully shot down USA-193, an ailing spy satellite, using a modified anti-ballistic missile interceptor.Theshot was not directed at any specific country, but some have suggested it was in response to the Chinese destruction of one of their own satellites 13 months prior. Missile defense as a foothold in space warfare is no longer a theoretical ambiguity.This show of anti-satellite force was a costly mistake if it only serves to instigate or accelerate an arms race in space. However, the United States has an opportunity to forestall the space arms race, and build a more stable space security regime.

Viewing science and technology as the key to economic development and international competitiveness, the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has launched a comprehensive effort to become an innovative nation by 2020 and a global scientific power by 2050. China’s effort will draw significantly on the resources and planning role of the state, whose national science programs have long made targeted investments in research and development (R&D) efforts in areas deemed critical to China’s economic and military needs.

At this juncture in the development of China’s aircraft carrier force, the operational employment and integration of an aircraft carrier in a naval or joint task force remains very much in the realm of theory and speculation, yet with careful parsing of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as an organization, some insights can and have been made. These include Ken Allen and Aaron Shraberg’s insightful contributions in using the PLA’s grade system to conduct a thought experiment on locating aircraft carriers within the PLA grade hierarchy ("Assessing the Grade Structure for China's Aircraft Carriers [Parts 1 and 2]," China Brief, July 15 and July 29). This article seeks to add to their analysis by taking observations from recent PLA exercises that involved joint force structures and speculating where an aircraft carrier might fit into a similar PLA task force organization. Based on this analysis, an aircraft carrier within the PLA Navy (PLAN) probably would be assigned a grade of division deputy leader (Grade 8) and the carrier strike group commander a grade of division leader (Grade 7)—a lower grade assessment than Allen and Shraberg. The implication is that the PLA is devolving joint command authority further down the grade scale as part of an overall attempt to transition away from centralized decision making.

With the commissioning of the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) first aircraft carrier, more clarity has been provided in terms of the organizational setup of any future PLA Navy (PLAN) carrier strike group. The details emerging about the aircraft carrier Liaoning help illustrate one of the most important elements of the PLA’s decades-long “revolution in military affairs”—the organizational and institutional revolution. David Shambaugh first called for a better understanding of PLA organization in the 1998 RAND study, The PLA in the Information Age, saying, “I would submit that institutional mapping is always necessary, as organizations must be thought of as evolving organisms that need to be carefully tracked” [1]. The field has ably responded with conferences and anthologies on the PLA as an organization, but this author would argue the focus still has largely remained on structure and technical capabilities, whether hardware or the “software” of human capital. The “institutional mapping” of how things get done that Shambaugh refers to has been largely lacking. The application of modern political science tools to what is essentially a learning organization with guns still has a wide horizon to pursue. This article will follow up on one of these questions by looking at the new carrier and putting it in the context of PLAN and PLA joint force structure.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recognizes that the human leadership element is a critical  part of its ongoing modernization process. As then Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) Jiang Zemin stated in a 2003 speech commemorating the 50th anniversary of the National University of Defense Technology:

The Senkaku/Diaoyu Tai Islands dispute between China and Japan has ramped up in a heated season of discontent, but given the position China has backed itself into through official pronouncements and military showmanship, Japan, Taiwan, and the United States have the opportunity to resolve the dispute. They can do this by forcing China to recognize a transfer of administrative control of the islands to Taiwan, or rather, the Republic of China (ROC), the legally binding designee of World War II–era diplomatic agreements. This action would accomplish a number of things:

China’s mid-December abduction of a US Navy unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) as the vessel was returning to its mothership after a scientific excursion showed that China is willing to play hardball with US hardware. In previous confrontations, China took custody of an EP-3 reconnaissance plane and its crew in 2001, and has harassed multiple unarmed US Navy survey ships with dangerous maneuvers. As part of its “peaceful rise”, China has focused on gaining ground in new domains of strategic interest outside of its traditional focus. As a result, it has adopted assertive and asymmetric strategic postures in the maritime, cyber, and space domains.

China has the engineering and spaceflight expertise, the doctrinal underpinnings, and the computer science and electrical engineering research and development experience for a counterspace cyber-EW directed energy weapons R&D program. My analysis stems entirely from open sources, based on academic research papers, journals, and other content published within China and internationally.

The story of a desperate young woman's escape from Japan’s bloody siege.

On December 13, 1937, my grandmother, a woman of barely 22 years named Wein-Shiu Liu Chou, heard the steady barrage of artillery from Imperial Japanese troops as they began their final assault on Nanjing, her hometown in China. The sound of shells exploding just outside the city walls must have made clear to those still in the city that the end was near. My grandmother would live a long life of 98 years, raise two daughters, see five grandchildren grow up, run small businesses in Taiwan and the United States, and sing in a choral group in Los Angeles, California, in her golden years. But on that cold December morning, such a future seemed impossible.

The Chinese government has been able to maintain its restrictive zero-COVID approach for over two years without engendering mass popular frustration in part because large-scale lockdowns in China's biggest East Coast cities have largely been averted; that is until recently. In late December and January, Xi'an, Tianjin, and several other big cities were placed under lockdowns. This was a clear indication that the Omicron variant's arrival in China presents a severe challenge to the government's "dynamic clearance" (动态清零, dongtai qingling) policy, which seeks to achieve a zero-infection rate among the population (China Brief, January 14). On March 27, the Shanghai Leadership Small Group for Epidemic Prevention, under guidance from the Central Government's National Health Commission, opted to conduct mass testing of all 26 million city residents (Xinhuanet, April 2). The municipal government implemented a phased lockdown in order to carry out testing and isolate cases. From March 28-31, ten million residents of Pudong on the western side of the Huangpu river were placed under stay-at-home restrictions; and from April 1-5, 16 million residents east of the Huangpu in Puxi were ordered into lockdown. The testing has underscored the severity of the current outbreak in Shanghai. On Thursday, 19,982 new COVID-19 cases were reported, which set a record for the sixth straight day (South China Morning Post, April 7). As a result of these spiraling cases numbers, millions of residents in Pudong, where stay-at-home mandates were supposed to have been lifted by March 31, and nearly all of those in Puxi, remain under lockdown orders.

With its ground troops forced to pull back in Ukraine and regroup, and its Black Sea flagship sunk, Russia’s military failings are mounting. No country is paying closer attention than China to how a smaller and outgunned force has badly bloodied what was thought to be one of the world’s most powerful armies.

In April, I asserted that the lessons learned from Russia’s war in Ukraine might influence China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to “accelerate the timetable for a smaller scale conflict” in the Taiwan Strait, short of a full-scale amphibious invasion (China Brief, April 8). On August 4, the PLA began a series of joint live-fire exercises in six exclusion zones surrounding Taiwan, including some that imposed on Taiwan’s territorial seas (81.cn, August 6). These exercises signal Beijing’s extreme pique that U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi led a Congressional delegation to meet with the leadership of Taiwan on August 2 and 3 (People’s Daily, August 3). Longtime students of PLA doctrine and military thought will recognize that these exercises have been in the works for the better part of two decades.

Early assessments of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) April exercises in the waters and airspace around Taiwan have focused on the diplomatic and political ramifications of yet another episode of saber-rattling by Beijing, but the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) own after-action assessments suggest growing self-confidence in their joint capabilities and the validation of a shift in operational doctrine that has been years in the making. Doctrine [1], or guidance on military thought, is currently provided in the “Chinese PLA Joint Operations Outline” (中国人民解放军联合作战纲要), which remains closely held, but doctrinal concepts and methods of operations are freely discussed by PLA academics and commentators, helping to illuminate the underlying precepts (PRC Ministry of National Defense [MND], January 5, 2022). As Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), Xi Jinping has also provided authoritative guidance in the form of “Military Strategic Guidelines” (军事战略方针) that emphasizes three major points: “innovation” (创新性), “agility of integrated offense and defense” (攻防结合的灵活性) and “active seizure of [battlefield] initiative” (争取主动的积极性). [2] Xi has continued to emphasize these themes into his third term under various political slogans, including “completion of army building, the objective of one hundred years of struggle” (实现建军一百年奋斗目标), a reference to the approaching centenary of the Red Army’s founding in 1927 (PLA Daily, November 5, 2022). The April exercises can be seen as one more step on the way to 2027.