Chinese Antisatellite Test Should Spur U.S. to Deploy Space-Based Missile Defenses, Expert Says

A Chinese antisatellite test earlier this month demonstrates that the United States must deploy space-based missile defenses to protect its satellites, according to a Washington-based missile defense proponent (see GSN, Jan. 19).

China successfully destroyed an aging weather satellite Jan. 11 by hitting it with a medium-range ballistic missile.  It was the first antisatellite test since a U.S. test in 1985.

“In destroying their own satellite, China has signaled to the world its capability to threaten essential satellites directly, by physically destroying them, and indirectly, by using lasers and other jamming techniques to deny free use of them,” Jeff Kueter, head of the George C. Marshall Institute, wrote in a paper this month.  “The Chinese die is cast.  They are a military space power and a force the U.S. must reckon with immediately.”

Kueter expressed skepticism that diplomatic arms control would restrain Chinese space activities.  Therefore, missile defenses are need, he said.

“If the international community is truly worried about the debris-generating effects of ASAT weapons, then it ought to embrace, indeed demand, development and deployment of boost-phase missile defense capable of intercepting ASAT missiles long before they reach their satellite targets,” he said (Space and Missile Defense Report, Jan. 22).

For its part, China said today that its test was peaceful.

“The test is not targeted at any country and will not threaten any country,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, in Beijing last weekend to brief Chinese officials on his recent talks with North Korean officials in Berlin (see related GSN story, today), urged caution.

He told Chinese officials to “avoid any sort of misunderstandings, not only with the United States, but other countries around the world,” U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday (Audra Ang, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Jan. 23).

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