The following article is based on our joint research of the great power competition in Outer Space and partly presented at the British Association for Chinese Studies 2023 Annual Conference at King’s College London as part of our paper called: “Chase for the Red Stars: China-Russia Synergy in Outer Space and Its Impact on Global Power Competition in the 21st Century”.
Written by Timna Michlmayr and Jan Železný
In September 2023, the Chinese government officially articulated its vision for reforming the global order and building a “Global Community with a Shared Future for Mankind” (GCSF) (人类命运共同体) – a foreign policy concept introduced by Xi Jinping for the first time in 2013. After the Chinese government released the Proposal of the People’s Republic of China on the Reform and Development of Global Governance (关于全球治理变革和建设的中国方案) in mid-September, a White Paper was issued two weeks later, outlining China’s past actions and plans to realize the GCSF. Despite the deliberately ambiguous nature of language often found in Chinese policy documents, the new documents offer insights into the key foreign policy priorities of the Chinese leadership.
Among them, China’s focus on increased collaboration with countries from the Global South, both regionally and bilaterally, comes into the spotlight. The trend again embodies China’s deliberate effort to rebalance global power away from the West and the hegemonic position of the United States (U.S.): on a regional level, the so-called “communities of shared future” mentioned in the White Paper and with which China intends to enhance cooperation primarily encompass Africa, ASEAN, Arabic countries, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Pacific Islands, and Central Asia; on a bilateral level, they include Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Mongolia, Cuba, and South Africa. While the West, primarily represented by the European Union (EU) and the US, unambiguously plays a minor role in China’s detailed vision of the future, collaborations with non-Western countries are being expanded on multiple fronts – and even beyond Earth! In the ongoing race for the cosmos, fuelled by geopolitical objectives, China’s vision of enhanced cooperation with countries from the Global South is increasingly evident. As Outer Space itself has become a battleground for global power competition and holds a central position in China’s pursuit of its foreign policy objectives, China officially also strives to build a “Community with a Shared Future for Mankind in Outer Space“).
The commitment to enhancing space collaboration with non-Western nations is evident, on the one hand, in China’s construction of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) (国际月球科研站), which, as the name implies, prioritizes international cooperation and can be viewed as a counterpart to the US-led Artemis Moon program. Since the China National Space Administration (CNSA) published its first roadmap for the ILRS in 2021, it has signed cooperation agreements and memoranda of understanding with several countries and international organizations. While the ILRS was originally a joint project led by both China and Russia, China has increasingly turned to new project partners, especially following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. An increasing number of China’s new “Moon partners” are countries of the Global South. In September 2022, China signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Pakistan for its planned Chang’e 6 lunar mission in 2024. In the same month, another MoU was signed with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the Rashid 2 rover of China’s planned Chang’e 7 mission in 2026 (the cooperation with the UAE had to be terminated due to export control regulations). In April 2023, China signed a joint statement on the ILRS with the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO), an inter-governmental organization that includes Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, Peru, Iran, Bangladesh, and Mongolia, and is headquartered in Beijing. In July 2023, Venezuela became the first nation to formally sign up for the ILRS besides China and Russia. After the two countries agreed on closer cooperation in space-related projects during the BRICS meeting in August 2023, China signed an MoU with South Africa for cooperation in the ILRS in early September 2023, solidifying their collaboration. Additionally, cooperation agreements or letters of intent have reportedly been signed with Argentina and Brazil. China has now also opened up the planned Chang’e-8 mission for international collaborations, scheduled for 2028, which is an integral part of Chinese lunar missions. The deadline for proposals expires at the end of December 2023, and the proposals will finally be selected in September 2024. In light of China’s recently solidified foreign policy ambitions, it can be expected that the circle of “Moon partners” in China’s competition against US dominance on the moon will likely further expand into the Global South.
Another tangible example of China’s attention shift towards the Global South that is simultaneously expanded to the Outer Space domain could be found in the Beidou Navigation Satellite System (北斗卫星导航系统) – China’s complex constellation serving as a hallmark of the so-called Digital Silk Road. Being part of the complex and much more publicized general Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Digital Silk Road was launched as an offshoot of it in 2015. Holding a name for the ancient network of commercial routes connecting East Asia with European markets through the vast land of Central Asia, it was approached as a tool to include the new technology development into the broader idea. However, Beijing very soon realized its great potential, made it one of the centerpieces of the BRI, and promoted it heavily during the different BRI events. Even though it contained mainly cybersecurity measures initially, many more layers were added subsequently – including 5G networks, fiber optics, artificial intelligence (AI) development, quantum computing, and last but not least a satellite navigation network enhancement that was embodied in Beidou (meaning the Northern Dipper – an ancient Chinese name for the seven brightest stars of the Ursa Major constellation).
Being an example of the so-called “military-civilian fusion policy”, which combines knowledge and capabilities of both commercial and military subjects to develop and share cutting-edge technology, Beidou was launched in the 1990s with a different intention and role than it has now. The rise of the Global South and China’s scramble for the leadership role in it was the song of the future back then. China was at that time simply concerned by the immense effectiveness of the modern way of leading warfare demonstrated by the U.S. during the 1st Persian Gulf War. The military and political leadership raised concerns that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be vulnerable without a satellite navigation system alternative to the GPS (Global Positioning System), owned by the US government and operated by the US Air Force, in case of any future great-power conflict. Based on that, a very ambitious 3-stage plan was launched. In the first phase, the satellite network was supposed to provide navigation services and landmass coverage to military and civilian users within China’s borders, subsequently expanding to the whole East Asia region. The milestone came in 2020 when Beidou became operational globally with its 35 functional satellites, providing coverage of the whole planet Earth and being extra efficient on the south half of the globe.
By that time it also gained a very specific political role, when it became an integral part of China’s strategy to increase its political clout in the countries of the Global South. By providing navigational and short messaging services with its constellation of 46 positioning, navigation, and timing satellites Beidou was a technological pioneer in many developing and low-income countries of Africa, South America, and South-East Asia. With such an innovative project, Beijing was able to provide these countries with access to modern technology and raise the feeling of inclusion in the rapidly developing sphere of the Space industry, which had been seen as an exclusive domain of the great powers and highly developed countries of the former West or Global North before. By expanding Beidou and its reach, China successfully eroded that image of “exclusivity” by providing a competing narrative – portraying itself as a developing country that has been able to develop an indigenous space program with tangible results and provide it to other developing countries of the Global South. And by doing so, disrupting the U.S. (or Western in general) space hegemony. As of 2022, Beidou was estimated to be used in more than 30 countries with 400 million users. It also served as a model for ambitious future Digital Silk Road plans, including the launch of over 13 000 smaller satellites in the low-Earth orbit (LEO) to provide a fast, stable, and very cheap internet connection to inhabitants of those underdeveloped regions as part of the so-called Belt and Road Space Information Corridor. This project should include some staunch China’s allies and key BRI participants like Egypt, Pakistan, or Nigeria. Part of it is also Beijing’s effort to facilitate the launch of satellites originating the developing countries for accessible and sustainable prices – it is estimated by the U.S. that between 2007 and 2019 China made around 20 launches for 13 countries, the majority of them being considered to belong to the Global South realm or being explicitly mentioned by the GCSF initiative (Algeria, Bolivia, Laos, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or Venezuela). Overlooked should also not be the numerous network of ground-based segments of Beidou and other satellite constellations, consisting of different types of radars and communication facilities, which are spread around 14 countries (for example Argentina, Iran or Thailand).
The above-mentioned paragraphs demonstrate that China’s will to transform the current form of the liberal international order (as it was established after the end of the 2nd World War and after the fall of the Cold War’s bipolarity) by launching GCSF, BRI, and her three initiatives (Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, and Global Civilizational Initiative) goes beyond traditional Earth-centered thinking. Nowadays, all the actors of the international system can perceive the growing great-power rivalry and competition emerging, however, the fact of its impact and a geopolitical pattern moving into Outer Space (and the current birth of the so-called “astropolitics”) is often underestimated or overlooked. However, the situation in Outer Space will inevitably mirror the development on Earth, the move from the U.S. “Unipolar Moment” of the 1990s to the more multipolar structure, being exacerbated by the strongly anarchic nature of the domain – as Outer Space still lacks any significant and functional international regime or “code of conduct”. In such an environment, China will need to enhance and deepen its relations with the emerging countries of the Global South to cement its position as a great power on both Earth and Outer Space.
Timna Michlmayr is a doctoral candidate at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna (Austria). Her research is concerned with fiscal politics and the political economy of local government debt in China. Other research interests include China’s role in global governance and space politics.
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Jan Železný is a Ph.D. student of International Relations at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (Czech Republic). He conducts research on the formation and change in the international order with special attention to the U.S.-China power rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, Sino-Russian cooperation in the Arctic and space, and the issues of global political economy. He also works as a foreign policy special advisor in the Chamber of Deputies (a lower house of the Czech Parliament). His political comments and articles can be found on the Info.cz magazine website.
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