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| Beijing increasing space capabilities |
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
WASHINGTON: China is aggressively building a wide range of capabilities in space, including the ability to shoot down satellites, a commander of U.S. space forces said Tuesday.
Such know-how holds great implications for Beijing’s potential to curb access in the Taiwan Straits and beyond, said Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Horne of the U.S. Strategic Command.
“China continues to aggressively develop a wide array of space and counter-space capabilities,” he said in prepared remarks to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressionally mandated advisory group.
Horne, deputy head of the Strategic Command’s joint component for space, said recent Chinese People’s Liberation Army writings suggested China might target an enemy’s spy satellites along with navigation and early-warning spacecraft “to blind and deafen.”
China’s unannounced shooting apart of one of its own defunct weather satellites in January 2007 “demonstrated the PLA’s ability to attack satellites operating in low Earth orbit,” he said.
In his written statement, Horne did not spell out the implications of China’s growing space clout on the U.S. ability to respond to any Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Beijing deems the democratically governed island a wayward province subject to being returned to the fold, by force if necessary. Horne said United States must “proactively protect our space capabilities.”
Among arms makers eyeing this market are Lockheed Martin Corp LMT.N, Boeing Co BA.N and Northrop Grumman Corp NOC.N, the Pentagon’s top three contractors by sales.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
