‘They have built the weapons to attack us in space’: The next frontier of US-China rivalry

China is making dramatic advances in outer space military technology that the emerging superpower could use against the United States and allies like Australia in a potential war, a visiting US military leader has warned.

Gregory Gagnon, commander of the US Space Force’s combat forces, said Beijing had developed the largest space force in the world, three times as large as America’s, making it a formidable adversary in a new frontier of military competition.

“I would tell you that the United States and the United States military are the most effective space force in the world, but the rapid acceleration of the Chinese space program is concerning,” Lieutenant-General Gagnon told reporters in Canberra.

“They are not moving out slowly. They are moving out like a world-class sprinter, and they are making gains.”

Gagnon said that China had around 70 satellites in space when Xi Jinping consolidated power in 2013, a figure that has risen to 1400 today.

Gagnon, who is visiting Australia to meet with his military counterparts, said the world had reached a new “dynamic point in the history of warfare where the air is no longer the high ground – space is the high ground”.

He warned that a “profound change in military dynamics” was under way and could allow China to gain a decisive military advantage over its adversaries and change the rules of the game in space.

“They have slowly developed leverage with security and military forces in the South China Sea. I would not want them to have that leverage from outer space,” he said.

He continued: “I try to remind people that space is a war-fighting domain today not because we want it to be, but because the [People’s Liberation Army] has made it so.

“They have built the weapons to attack us in space. They have practised using those weapons to attack us in space.”

Gagnon added that while Russia is not the space superpower it was during the Cold War, it was still a major player and liked to position its satellites near US satellites.

“Warfare will extend to space if it’s warfare against the Chinese or Russians, because they have built military forces to do this. They didn’t do that just because they had nothing else to do,” he said.

Gagnon said China’s advanced remote sensing systems in space allowed its military to track the movement of Australian and US troops, which it could then attack with long-range missiles.

While a war between the superpowers was not inevitable, he said the US and Australia needed to be prepared to fight China in space and go on the offensive, rather than simply defend their assets.

“We must be prepared to protect, defend and, as a joint force, attack the PLA space capabilities so that they can no longer track our ships, so that they can no longer track forces,” he said.

Donald Trump created the Space Force as a new branch of the military during his first term as president in 2019.

A report released by the United States Studies Centre last week found that Australia “lags behind its partners and allies” in space and that it “lacks a clear strategic direction for its space priorities”.

“Australia risks being left behind unless it is willing to stand on its own two feet in space,” the report’s authors, Kathryn Robinson and Isobel Haddow, warned as they called for a boost in funding and a new space strategy.

The government’s new 10-year spending plan for the Australian Defence Force, released last week, said it planned between $9 billion and $12 billion on space capabilities over the next decade.

This includes the delivery of a new multi-orbit defence satellite communications system designed to be used in operations in the Indo-Pacific.

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