U.S. Knew China Was Planning Antisatellite Test

Bush administration officials were aware that China was preparing an antisatellite missile test earlier this year, but elected not to raise the issue with Beijing, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, March 12).

Using a modified ballistic missile, China destroyed one of its own weather satellites in January, demonstrating a capability that has raised U.S. concerns about the vulnerability of U.S. military satellites (see GSN, Jan. 19).

“It makes space astronomically more dangerous than it was before,” said Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley at a recent conference.

Administration officials debated whether to ask China to refrain from conducting the test, but decided that such a move would reveal U.S. intelligence capabilities without guaranteeing that Beijing would alter its plans, the Times reported.

“There were discussions about different options of how to deal with a potential test that was coming up, whether you demarche them early on, whether you wait to see if they are successful, if they’re not,” said Lt. Gen. Walter Sharp, a senior aide to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace.

Ultimately, “the principals’ best judgment, including the leadership of the intelligence community, was that they were committed to testing the antisatellite weapon,” added an administration official.

Outside experts disagreed over that decision, with some noting China’s long-standing effort to negotiate a treaty to ban weapons in space.  For years, the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva has been unable to agree to even hold such talks (see GSN, Feb. 14).

“Had the United States been willing to discuss the military use of space with the Chinese in Geneva, that might have been enough to dissuade them from going through with it,” said Jeffrey Lewis, of the New America Foundation.

“This was absolutely preventable,” added Joseph Cirincione, of the Center for American Progress.  “The Chinese have been proposing a treaty to ban weapons in space for years.  We have refused in order to pursue this fantasy of space-based antimissile weapons.”

Other experts said China would probably have conducted its test even if the United States had protested beforehand.

“For years, the Chinese military has been writing about how to cripple a superpower that relies on high-tech capabilities like satellites,” said Peter Rodman, a former senior Defense Department official.  “I don’t see why they would trade it away.”

The test made “a mockery of China’s space weapons diplomacy,” concurred John Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org.  “Their proposals were always aimed at American space-based systems and always excluded a ground-based, pop-up antisatellite weapon such as theirs.  I don’t think we could have talked them out of testing against a target” (Gordon/Cloud, New York Times, April 23).

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