Alarm over China's arms pursuit - in space

CS Monitor ^ | 20 Nov 2006 | Peter N. Spotts

[FLOutdoorsman]

A report presses for US-China talks over space weaponry.

New alarms are sounding over signs that China may be developing space weapons, reinforcing suspicions that the People's Liberation Army is increasingly interested in the final frontier as a theater of war.

The latest alert came Thursday from an independent panel - created by Congress to assess the economic and security situations in China - that questions Chinese intentions and urges lawmakers to lean on the Bush administration to talk with Beijing about curtailing space militarization.

Specifically, the annual report of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission urges the US to emphasize to China the merits of "strategic warning and verification measures" - in essence, the value to both sides of leaving early-warning and spy satellites unharmed.

To be sure, space has been militarized since the United States and the former Soviet Union launched the first reconnaissance satellites during the cold war. Nowadays, US intelligence services are intent on teasing out information on China's military space program, and their findings are a staple of Pentagon reports to Congress on threats to US security.

[mallardx]

I sure hope we have the capability to down every enemy satellite in space within 24 hours. If we do not, we are in a heap of trouble.

[samson1097]

We most likely have the capability to do a little damage to enemy satelites. This is completely unfounded, but I suspect that there's a little program somewhere quietly working on this.