China Dubs US ‘Greatest Threat’ to Space Security, ‘Biggest Instigator of Space Arms Race
Posted: 17th November 2024
In 2008, China and Russia put forward the Proposed Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) Treaty – a comprehensive draft arms control pact designed to ban the deployment of all sorts of weapons in space. Successive US administrations have rejected PAROS as a “diplomatic ploy” designed to give the countries a “military edge” over the US.
The United States is the biggest global threat to security in outer space, and the greatest single instigator of an arms race in the celestial body, the Chinese military said Friday in a response to recent allegations by a senior US Space Force commander about the “mind-boggling” pace of China’s space-based military buildup.
“The United States’ deployment of anti-satellite weapons under the pretext of the so-called ‘Chinese space threat’ is a complete distortion of the facts and is like a thief crying ‘catch the thief’,” Defense Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said in a briefing, referencing the US’s controversial Meadowlands satellite jamming program.
“The facts have shown repeatedly that the United States is the greatest threat to security in space, and the biggest supporter of an arms race in outer space,” Zhang said, highlighting the US military’s repeated references to space as a “war-fighting domain,” and Pentagon efforts to continually enhance its space capabilities, and even create space-based alliances.
These actions pose “grave” risks to the security and development interests of all nations, the spokesman suggested.
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