Exclusive | Why Donald Trump’s new Space Force can’t hurt China like Star Wars hurt the Soviet Union
Washington plans a dedicated military branch for its sprawling space programmes, but the cold war has taught Beijing the danger of being drawn into a reckless race for supremacy
When US President Donald Trump announced in June that he was ordering his defence department to create Space Force, Chinese state media reports were quick to draw comparisons with a previous US president’s out-of-this-world military aspirations.
The hawkish state-run tabloid Global Times told its readers the proposed military branch targeted China with the “same trick” Ronald Reagan attempted in the 1980s with his “Star Wars” space system to defend against Soviet nuclear missiles.
Star Wars, officially known as the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), was never developed, but it cast a long shadow over Moscow’s political and economic calculations and arguably contributed to the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.
However, while Trump’s new Space Force may target a rising China, Beijing’s confidence about its technological development make it unlikely to be destabilised in the way the Soviet Union was by Star Wars, say military analysts.
Watch: Donald Trump announces ‘Space Force’ to get ahead of China in space
An editorial in the People’s Liberation Army’s mouthpiece, PLA Daily, pointed out that a dedicated space branch of the United States military was overdue, given that up to 90 per cent of US military intelligence and all of its missile positioning systems rely on satellites.
Trump should understand that Space Force alone cannot ruin China’s political and economic systems
