China’s Space Ambitions

Assessing China’s space program is vital to understanding how investments in space add to a country’s comprehensive national power. An analysis of China’s space program drivers, goals, and capabilities makes it evident that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership has prioritized investments in space as a key area of innovation and technology. China has robust civilian and military space structures, inspired and institutionalized by a civil-military integration strategy, with the aim of emerging as a lead actor in space by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). To better shape U.S. space policy, it is critical to understand the drivers that inform China’s space program, its space goals, and its space capabilities in the civilian, military, and commercial arenas...