《The Implications of China’s Military and Civil Space Programs》.pdf

Testimony May 2011 The ImplIcaTIons of chIna’s mIlITary and cIvIl space programs By Barry D. Watts Testimony presented before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on May 11, 2011. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission, thank you for inviting me to testify at today’s hearing. I will confine my comments to the Commission’s questions on the overall context of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) emerging use of orbital systems to support military modernization efforts such as the country’s emerging anti-access/area- denial (A2/AD) capabilities in the western Pacific, including the impact of the PRC’s space program on the Chinese concept of Comprehensive National Power (CNP). Regarding the role that the PRC’s space assets might play in U.S.-China conflict scenarios in the 2012- 2020 timeframe, I will assess the likelihood of such conflicts occurring and argue that China’s own growing military use of space may constrain their counterspace options in the long run to a greater extent than some of our war gaming has suggested. how has the military Use of space changed since the 1960s? The United States, starting with the first successful return of a film canister from a KH- 1 Corona reconnaissance satellite in august 1960, began to exploit orbital space to monitor the evolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic’s (USSR’s) strat