Space Security Competition in the New Era

World Affairs Issue 20, 2021

Despite being obstructed and isolated by other countries, China has successfully developed its own space program since 1956. In 1970, Dong Fang Hong 1, the first Chinese satellite, was launched, making China the fifth nation to put a domestic-developed spacecraft into orbit. Over the past 65 years of development, China’s aerospace industry has achieved remarkable accomplishments, enabling the country to become a rising space power, with its own industrial infrastructure, four launch sites, and measurement and control capabilities that can match Western countries. As of August 30, 2021, Zhurong, China’s first Mars rover, had traveled a total of 1,064 meters, collecting nearly 10 GB of raw data.

Meanwhile, China has continued to develop space cooperation with other countries. On May 28, 2021, the China Manned Space Engineering Office and United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs jointly issued an announcement, inviting the UN member states to cooperate in terms of space science applications in China’s space station. At present, nine projects in 17 countries have become the first batch of scientific experiments.