Bush Administration Silence Enabled Chinese Antisatellite Test, Analysts Say

By Elaine M. Grossman
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Chinese leaders might have scrapped an antisatellite test conducted in January had the United States and other nations made clear their serious opposition to it beforehand, two independent U.S. analysts said Tuesday (see GSN, Aug. 15).

After the Jan. 11 test — in which China destroyed one of its own aging weather satellites with a ground-based, hit-to-kill missile — U.S. officials and their counterparts in other countries denounced the demonstration as a provocative move.  Responsible for more than half the estimated 800 satellites operating today, the United States is heavily reliant on its commercial and military space assets for communications and observation.

Some pundits have asserted that the test called into question Beijing’s oft-repeated insistence that it pursues only peaceful goals in space.  China has proposed an international agreement banning an arms race in space, an initiative the Bush administration has rejected (see GSN, June 9, 2006).

Many U.S. space officials and experts also have expressed alarm at the significant amount of orbital debris created by the Chinese test, which could pose collision risks to international satellites for years to come (see GSN, Jan. 19).

Even tiny pieces of orbital debris, traveling at fast speed, could disable satellites by piercing them or shattering key components, according to space experts.  Operators are being forced to expend precious on-board fuel to enable satellites to dodge the debris, ultimately shortening the time these assets remain available in space, a top U.S. military space official told Congress in March.

A number of Chinese officials involved in the test reported that they saw the event as a natural culmination of some 20 years of steady research and development, and did not anticipate the depth of international anger that followed, according to Gregory Kulacki of the Union of Concerned Scientists and Jeffrey Lewis of the New America Foundation.  Moreover, some Chinese officials have contended that the debris risk to satellites has been exaggerated abroad, the two analysts said at an event hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Over the past eight months, Kulacki and Lewis have traveled to China several times to discuss the test “with individuals who have some knowledge of the history of this particular ASAT program and access to information about the decision-making process” carried out before and after the experiment, they state in a draft paper reviewed by Global Security Newswire. 

The two China experts said their sources represent the views of “some of the key institutions involved in the test” including the government, the Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army.  The analysts also met with aerospace experts involved in debris calculation.

“Everyone we spoke with about the test feels it was a net negative for Chinese security interests.  The costs to China’s international reputation were higher than anyone in China expected,” according to the draft, which Lewis said he hopes to see published in coming weeks.

The Chinese officials and experts said the strong negative reaction came as a surprise in part because U.S. officials registered no objections after Beijing performed two prior “fly-by” tests, one in July 2005 and another in February 2006.  The United States detected both tests in which a Chinese missile passed near satellites without striking them, the New York Times reported in April.

“Why didn’t the United States say anything?” Kulacki asked during the panel discussion at Carnegie.  “Some of our [Chinese] colleagues suggested that the leadership may have gotten the message that, ‘Well, you know, we’ve done these two fly-bys, nobody said anything, so I guess it’s OK.  The risks aren’t that high.’”

All the Chinese officials engaged in discussion with Kulacki and Lewis “believe that if the United States had issued a demarche after any of the earlier ‘fly-by’ tests in 2005 and 2006, the political leadership would have reversed the decision to proceed with the final destructive test,” the analysts write in their draft paper.

U.S. officials also tracked China’s preparations for the January 2007 test but opted not to ask Beijing to postpone or cancel it, according to the New York Times.  Washington remained publicly silent about the test even after it occurred, commenting only when the news leaked to a defense trade journal more than a week later.

Kulacki and Lewis said they are revisiting the issue now because they see in the Chinese handling of the issue a potential opening for talks aimed at improving mutual understanding across the board, as well as on this specific issue.

Comments they heard during their trips demonstrated that “international opinion [is] relevant” to Beijing’s actions, indicating that future dialogue might help avoid future Chinese or U.S. miscalculations, according to a slide the two presented at this week’s event.

A Chinese internal assessment of the space debris that might result from the test — carried out quietly prior to the missile launch and revealed by the two U.S. analysts — “suggests concern about the rights of other space-faring nations,” they stated.

Even though the two analysts have called for increased U.S.-Chinese dialogue on the issue of space activities, they noted that they did not find evidence that China undertook the test expressly to push the United States to the negotiating table.

The Bush administration has rejected calls for negotiations, insisting there is no military competition in space (see GSN, Feb. 14).

Arms control experts explain that any such negotiations might be complicated by the fledgling U.S. missile defense system, which could offer a latent antisatellite capability and might include space-based components.

“Any attempt to ban ASAT weapons development will have to figure out how to square such an agreement with the existence of U.S. ballistic missile defenses,” according to a paper posted online in April by the Arms Control Association.  “Although the effectiveness of these defenses against [enemy] missiles has been questioned, there is no doubt that [the defenses] could hit a satellite in low-Earth orbit.”

If only to maintain robust defenses, the United States should avoid negotiations that would preclude space weapons, some analysts have advised.  Others have gone further, arguing the U.S. military must counter a rising threat from China that might endanger U.S. space assets, which remain vulnerable to antisatellite missile attack. 

Limited high-level Chinese statements about the incident to date have emphasized that the test was not directed at any particular foreign nation.

In an interview yesterday, Lewis said those statements — though viewed skeptically in Washington — might actually have some merit.  Bureaucratic bungling and internal jockeying behind the scenes in China surrounding the test, which he and Kulacki discovered in their talks, might imply less of a unified focus in Beijing on sending the United States a “message” than some other Washington analysts have conjectured, Lewis said.

However, critics have questioned the plausibility of that view.  If left unhindered, U.S. spy satellites and space-based communications and geo-location assets — such as the Global Positioning System — could prove to be a serious U.S. advantage in any potential war against China.

“How can [China’s antisatellite effort] not be directed at the United States when there’s nothing else worth shooting at?” John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org asked from the audience at this week’s event.  “How can they possibly be designing this system — how could they possibly be figuring out how many do we need, how high do they have to go and all of that other kind of stuff — if it was not directed at the Americans?

“If it’s not a central part of their war-winning strategy or their least implausible theory of victory on Taiwan, why isn’t it?” he continued.  “It’s a good idea!”

In the interview this week, Lewis termed Pike’s approach “fatalism.”

“You can make guesses about the fact that we’re their primary adversary, that there’s a serious potential point of conflict over Taiwan, [and] that both sides are obviously preparing for the possibility for conflict over that,” Kulacki said at the panel discussion.  “But I don’t think you can make a definitive claim about one particular test or event being directed at the United States and prove it.”

He added that a lack of certainty on this point “creates a potential for dialogue.”  Conversely, “if you assume that you must know that it’s against us, that obviously greatly restricts the potential for dialogue and you’ve closed off a potential avenue of resolving an important issue.”

Pike remained unconvinced.

“That makes no sense,” he said.

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