China is developing space technologies aimed at blocking US military communications and destroying its ability to win conflicts, according to a report commissioned by a panel created by the US Congress.
“China’s improving space capabilities have negative-sum consequences for US military security,” the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) said in the report.
Its progress requires “the US to prepare to confront an adversary possessing space and counter-space technologies,” the report said.
The report, released on Monday in Washington, comes as the US Congress debates US President Barack Obama’s request for a Department of Defense budget increase of 7.7 percent to US$534.3 billion and ways to align defense strategy and spending.
The top US intelligence official and the commander of the US Strategic Command both warned last week that China’s space program threatens US military communications.
The program is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “China Dream” strategy of strengthening national power and reshaping the Asia-Pacific political environment into one in which its interests are given greater attention.
“China’s goal is to become a space power on par with the United States and to foster a space industry that is the equal of those in the United States, Europe and Russia,” according to the report, which was prepared for the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
“With improved military capabilities, and the potential for growth in the commercial aerospace industry, China’s development” of space technologies will allow it to “more effectively wield international power,” the commission said in a statement on Monday.
Chinese military analysts consider that space-based information will become a deciding issue in future wars, that space will be a dominant battlefield, and that in order to achieve victory on Earth, one must first seize the initiative in space, the institute said.
“This will require China to achieve space supremacy, defined as the ability to freely use space and to deny the use of space to adversaries,” according to the report, titled China Dream, Space Dream: China’s Progress in Space Technologies and Implications for the United States.
The assessment that space is the dominant battlefield has led the People’s Liberation Army to conclude that war in space is inevitable, the institute said in the report led by Kevin Pollpeter, deputy director of the Study of Innovation and Technology in China at the IGCC.
If the current trajectory of China’s space program continues, by 2030 China will have a new line of advanced launch vehicles, a robust, space-based command and control network and more capable electronic intelligence communication satellites, the report said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)