C3S ISSUE BRIEF XXXIV - Decoding China’s Strategic Language in Outer Space: By Cris Fernando Anand Perez
- Chennai Centre for China Studies
- 1 hour ago
- 2 min read
Guided By Dr. Ramumanivanan
Abstract
Outer Space today has become one of the most important and strategic arenas of global politics, because today states depend on it for communications, navigation, intelligence, surveillance, financial institutions, and most importantly military coordination. A domain that was once a scientific exploration and an achievement towards mankind, became a domain of strategic statecraft and power projection where economic power, technological advancements, with the capability of Anti Access - Area Denial (A2/AD). This shift has made space central to national security planning for those capable, and security dilemmas for those who struggle, because satellites and related infrastructure are no longer just useful tools, they are critical assets that can shape how states compete, cooperate and prepare for conflict.
The geopolitical importance of space emerged during the Cold War, when the United States and Soviet Union turned space exploration into a symbol of prestige and test technological superiority. Over time, the military value of space expanded beyond symbolic competition into reconnaissance missiles warning, targeting, secure communications, satellite disruption, cyber attacks and anti-satellite weapons. The outer space becomes a field of scientific, commercial, and militarization by private and state-led contestation for power, legitimacy and leverage.
The transition in the domain of space could be understood by three very unique yet intersecting lenses of geopolitics, geoeconomics and geostrategy. The geopolitical lens highlights the control over space infrastructure and standards, because influence in space means having influence over the rules and systems that other states rely on for the very protection and accountability. The geoeconomics lens helps us focus on the growing space economy and growing stakeholder influence with states and non-state actors (MNC’S, Private Companies, Co-Partnerships). The geostrategic lens helps us emphasize that space systems are dual- use and vulnerable, hence the securitization, disruption, militarization have become the central concern for major powers.
Within this very broader context, China’s rise has been significant over a few decades. Beijing treats space as a core domain of national power and has built capabilities across the civil, commercial and military sector with a long-term state strategy.
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Cris Fernando Anand Perez is a Research Intern at C3S. The views expressed here are of the author's own and do not reflect the views of C3S.)
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