Cause for concern: US watching China’s ‘breathtakingly fast’ space development ‘very, very closely’, top commander says

Head of US space command warns that China’s space development is making its terrestrial forces ‘more precise, more lethal and more far ranging’
PLA has just announced structural reorganisation of space forces to strengthen capacity, enhance ‘crisis management’

China’s military

Seong Hyeon Choi

Published: 7:27pm, 24 Apr 2024

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China’s “breathtakingly fast” development in space is a “cause for concern” for the United States Space Force, the country’s space commander has warned.

At a press briefing on Wednesday, General Stephen Whiting, head of the US Space Command, said China had tripled its number of intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance satellites in Earth orbit over the past six years, while also improving the lethality, precision and range of the country’s terrestrial forces.

United States Space Force General Stephen Whiting said there was an “obvious cause for concern” in China’s development. Photo: Getty Images

“The People’s Republic of China is moving at breathtaking speed in space, and they are rapidly developing a range of counter-space weapons to hold at risk, our space capabilities,” Whiting said, during a visit to South Korea and Japan.

“They’re also using space to make their terrestrial forces, their army, their navy, the marine corps, their air force, more precise, more lethal and more far ranging … And so that obviously is a cause for concern and something that we are watching very, very closely.”

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The People Liberation Army (PLA) has boosted military aerospace funding to reach a modernisation target set for 2027 – the year of its centenary – paving the way for China to become a “world-class” military power by 2049.

In its largest structural reform in almost a decade, China last week disbanded the PLA’s Strategic Support Force (SSF) which had been established in 2015 to take charge of the PLA’s cyber, space, electronic and psychological warfare capabilities.

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The new Information Support Force was inaugurated on the same day, taking over some of the functions of the SSF, while two forces – the military aerospace and cyberspace force – will remain independent, reporting directly to the Central Military Commission under a new command structure.

Chinese defence ministry spokesman, Senior Colonel Wu Qian, said the aerospace force will be responsible for “strengthening the capacity to safely enter, exit and openly use space, enhancing crisis management, and the efficacy of comprehensive governance in space”.

Whiting said Washington has noted the Chinese space force’s new structural reorganisation.

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“They’ve made those changes to further enhance the importance of space and information warfare and cyber operations in the People’s Liberation Army,” Whiting said.

“We’ll want to understand what that means long term. And hopefully, there’ll be some transparency there from [China].”

Whiting added that the US and its Asian allies, such as South Korea and Japan, have a “shared understanding” of facing threats from China and the importance of space to “not only how we defend our nations, but also to enable this modern way of life that we’ve become used to”.