UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S ANTISATELLITE TEST

Abstract

In discussing China's January 2007 hit-to-kill intercept of the Chinese weather satellite FengYun-1C, most American analysts sought the “message” for the United States—either by asserting that China's test was a deliberate step toward a comprehensive counterspace capability to offset U.S. conventional military superiority or an attempt to force the United States to the negotiating table on “the prevention of an arms race in outer space.” Chinese officials, after a long silence, eventually claimed the test was an “experiment” that was “not targeted at any country.” We traveled to China several times in 2007 and had a series of conversations with Chinese individuals knowledgeable about the history of this particular antisatellite program and with access to information about the decision-making process prior to and after the final test. These discussions were off the record, not for attribution, given the sensitivity of the subject. They reflected the views of some of the key institutions involved in the test from the State, the Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, and aerospace experts involved in debris calculations. The information conveyed to us suggests that American commentators tend to place much greater importance on the United States as a driver in China's decision to develop the technology and conduct the test than do the Chinese.

Keywords:

• China
• antisatellite
• missile defense
• United States

Notes

1. Jim Wolf, “US Air Force Chief Links F-35 Fighter Jet to China,” Reuters, September 20, 2007.

2. For an excellent summary of differing U.S. views relating to Chinese decision making, motivations, and the implications of the test, see: Phillip C. Saunders and Charles D. Lutes, “China's ASAT Test: Motivations and Implications,” Institute for National Strategic Studies, Special Report, June 2007.

3. Liu Jianchao, Foreign Ministry spokesman, Regular Press Conference, January 23, 2007, <www.china-embassy.org/eng/fyrth/t291388.htm>.

4. Unfortunately, although some of the information that was provided to us and is discussed in this paper is not classified or embargoed, discussing our sources in any detail could have consequences neither we nor they can anticipate with any degree of confidence. In China, there are no bright lines or well-defined rules regarding what can and cannot be discussed with foreign scholars, and the subjective standards that do exist vary from person to person, institution to institution, and issue to issue. One of the individuals who spoke with us has already suffered recrimination due to our lack of attentiveness to concerns about confidentiality and propriety. In our own best interest and in the interest of our Chinese colleagues, we cannot be any more specific regarding to whom we spoke or where they work.

5. A full-text search of a widely used Chinese periodical database on the Chinese term for antisatellite, fanweixing, returned 138 articles published between 1971 and 1986. Zhongguo Qikan Quanwen Shujuku, <wgww.cnki.com.cn>.

6. “Meidi Jiguang Wuqi Fazhan Jihua” (Imperialist America's Laser Weapons Development Plan), Lixue Jizhan (Advances in Mechanics) 4 (1971), pp. 3–5. This article is a straightforward summary of the contents of a pair of articles that appeared in Aviation Week & Space Technology at about the same time: “Laser Weaponry Seen Advancing,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 92 (January 12, 1970), pp. 16–17, and “Laser Advances May Evolve New Weapons,” Aviation Week & Space Technology 92 (March 9, 1970), p. 209.

7. “Sulian You Yi Ce Jingxing Fanweixing Shiyan” (The USSR Carries Out Yet Another ASAT Test), Xiandai Fangyu Jishu (Modern Defense Technology) 4 (1981), p. 54, discusses the March 14, 1981 co-orbital ASAT tests by the Soviet Union. Jun Ya and Huang Wei, “Meiguo Jihua Jinxing Fanweising Shiyan” (America Planning to Carry Out ASAT Test), Xitong Gongcheng yu Dianzi Jishu (Systems Engineering and Electronic Technology) Issue 4 (1984), p. 80, and Qiu Guilin and Wan Yao “Mei F-15 Yunzai Feiji Zizhu Fashe Shiyan Fanweixing Xitong” (US F-15 Carrier Plane Autonomous Test Launch of ASAT System), Xitong Gongcheng yu Dianzi Jishu (Systems Engineering and Electronic Technology) 3 (1986), p. 70. There are also numerous Chinese articles published during this period on the hit-to-kill technologies discussed as part of U.S. and Soviet missile defense plans.

8. This criticism was directed at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) by some of our Chinese colleagues because many U.S. press accounts relied on estimates produced by David Wright, codirector of the UCS Global Security Program, who suggested the figure of 40,000 dangerous large fragments cited above. See David Wright, “Debris from China's Kinetic Energy Anti-Satellite Test,” Union of Concerned Scientists, May 2007. Chinese General Guo Boxiong, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, repeated the claim to U.S. Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, during Keating's visit to China on May 11, 2007. Al Pessin, “US, Chinese Military Officers Sharply Disagree Over Anti-Satellite Issue,” VOA News, May 11, 2007.

9. Council of the European Union, “Declaration by the Presidency on Behalf of the European Union on a Chinese Test of an Anti-Satellite Weapon,” 5602/1/07 REV1 (Presse 10), January 24, 2007. Other expressions of international concern are summarized in Agence France Presse (AFP), “Australia Summons China Envoy over Satellite,” January 19, 2007; Bloomberg, “Japan, Australia Ask China to Explain Space Missile,” January 19, 2007; AFP, “China under Pressure to Explain Satellite Missile Strike,” January 20, 2007; “Japan Demands Further Explanation from China on Anti-Satellite Test,” Japan Today, January 24, 2007; AFP, “Britain Concerned by Chinese Satellite Shoot-Down,” January 19, 2007.

10. “The United States detected two previous tests of the system,” reportedly on July 7, 2005, and February 6, 2006, according to the New York Times. For more on the Bush administration's decision not to issue a démarche, see Michael R. Gordon and David S. Cloud, “U.S. Knew of China's Missile Test, but Kept Silent,” New York Times, April 23, 2007, p. A1.

11. The first was from William Safire who, invoking the memory of Pearl Harbor, claimed President Bill Clinton was selling ASAT technologies to the Chinese in exchange for campaign contributions. William Safire, “U.S. Security for Sale,” New York Times, May 18, 1998, p. A19.

12. Report of the Commission to Assess U.S. National Security Space Management and Organization, January 11, 2001, pp. xiv, 22–23.

13. Wang Hucheng, “Meiguo de Junshi ‘Ruan Lei’ yu Zhanlüe Ruodian” (The Soft Ribs and Strategic Weaknesses of the American Military), Liaowang 27 (July 3, 2000), pp. 32–34.

14. Ashley J. Tellis, “Punching the U.S. Military's ‘Soft Ribs’: China's Antisatellite Weapon Test in Strategic Perspective,” Carnegie Endowment Policy Brief No. 51, June 2007. See also, Ashley J. Tellis, “China's Military Space Strategy,” Survival 49 (September 2007), pp. 41–72, and Ashley J. Tellis, “China's Space Weapons,” Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2007, p. A15.

15. We found more than a dozen references to Wang's article that suggest his views reflect how the Chinese leadership approaches space issues, beginning with American Foreign Policy Council, Al Santoli, ed., “Beijing Describes How to Defeat U.S., in High-Tech War,” China Reform Monitor No. 331, September 12, 2000, <www.afpc.org/crm/crm331.shtml>. Other citations include: Phillip Saunders, Jing-dong Yuan, Stephanie Lieggi, and Angela Deters, “China's Space Capabilities and the Strategic Logic of Anti-Satellite Weapons,” July 22, 2002, <cns.miis.edu/pubs/week/020722.htm>; Richard J. Adams and Martin E. France, “The Chinese Threat to US Space Superiority,” High Frontier: The Journal for Space & Missile Professionals 1 (Winter 2005), p. 18; Kevin Pollpeter, “The Chinese Vision Of Space Military Operations,” in James Mulvenon, David Finkelstein, editors, “China's Revolution in Doctrinal Affairs: Emerging Trends in the Operational Art of the Chinese People's Liberation Army,” (Arlington: Rand Corporation and the Center for Naval Analysis, 2006), p. 360; J. Kevin McLaughlin and Chris D. Crawford, “A Roadmap for Air Force Space (Part I),” High Frontier: The Journal for Space & Missile Professionals 3 (August 2007), p. 23; Richard Fisher Jr., “China's Direct Ascent ASAT,” International Assessment and Strategy Center, January 20, 2007.

16. Wen Jiabao, Press Conference during the Fifth Plenary of the Tenth National People's Congress, March 16, 2007, <npc.people.com.cn/GB/28320/78072/78081/5480155.html>.

17. Some U.S. analysts have questioned whether China could feasibly mount an attack against U.S. space assets that would alter the outcome of a conflict with the United States. For a recent modeling of the constraints China would face in mounting a concerted ASAT attack against the United States, see, Geoffrey Forden, “How China Loses the Coming Space War,” <blog.wired.com/defense/2008/01/inside-the-chin.html>.

18. Editorial, “China's Muscle Flex in Space,” New York Times, January 20, 2007, p. A10.

19. William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, “Flexing Muscle, China Destroys Satellite in Test,” New York Times, January 19, 2007, p. A1.

20. Marc Kaufman and Dafna Linzer, “China Criticized for Anti-Satellite Missile Test,” Washington Post, January 19, 2007, p. A1.

21. Craig Covault, “Chinese Test Anti-Satellite Weapons,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, January 17, 2007, <www.aviationweek.com/aw/ generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/CHI01177.xml>.

22. David E. Sanger and Joseph Kahn, “U.S. Officials Try to Interpret China's Silence Over Satellite,” New York Times, January 22, 2007, p. A3.

23. Bates Gill and Martin Kleiber, “China's Space Odyssey: What the Antisatellite Test Reveals About Decision-Making in Beijing,” Foreign Policy 86 (May/June 2007), <www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501facomments86301/bates-gill-martin-kleiber/china-s-space-odyssey-what-the-antisatellite-test -reveals-about-decision-making-in-beijing.html>.

24. James C. Mulvenon, “Rogue Warriors? A Puzzled Look at the Chinese ASAT Test,” China Leadership Monitor, 20 (Winter 2007), available at the Hoover Institution website, <media.hoover.org/documents/clm20jm.pdf>.

25. The issue of timing is discussed in Jeffrey Lewis, Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007), pp.171–192. The 1985 and 2000 working papers are reproduced in the appendices, pp. 209–216.

26. “Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security Concerns and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China” (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999). It is referred to colloquially as the “Cox Report” after its chairman, Representative Christopher Cox (Republican of California).

27. Griffin was disappointed about the limited access to facilities and peers available at the Jiuquan launch site. “NASA Press Conference Transcript, Shanghai China, 27 September 2006,” September 28, 2006, <asia.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=22209>.

28. Associated Press, “NASA Chief: China Will Beat Us back to the Moon,” CNN.com, October 4, 2007.

29. Pessin, “US, Chinese Military Officers Sharply Disagree Over Anti-Satellite Issue.”

30. Joseph Kahn, “Head of Joint Chiefs Calls China's Military Aims Unclear,” New York Times, March 24, 2007, p. A5.