Who rules space may shape the world below: The US-China battle for orbit

Outer space has ceased to be the exclusive domain of scientific curiosity or Cold War symbolism. It has become the most consequential theatre of great power competition in the 21st century. The rivalry between the US and China in space technology is no longer reducible to a contest of rockets and satellites; it is a multidimensional struggle encompassing military advantage, economic dominance, technological standard-setting and the architecture of future alliances. 

As China accelerates its space programme with determined state investment and as Washington confronts an increasingly complex global posture, the space divide between the two powers is widening in ways that carry profound implications far beyond the atmosphere. By examining the strategic, economic, and alliance dimensions of the US-China space competition, I argue that space has become an integrated instrument of grand strategy for both powers — and that the competition unfolding in orbit shall shape the distribution of global influence on earth for decades to come.

Strategy, deterrence, and dual-use

At its core, US-China space competition is a struggle for strategic superiority. Space assets underpin virtually every dimension of modern military power: reconnaissance and surveillance, precision navigation and targeting, communications architecture, missile early warning and anti-satellite capabilities. The Pentagon’s 2023 China Military Power Report acknowledged that China has invested heavily in counter-space capabilities, including ground-based anti-satellite missiles, directed-energy weapons and cyber tools designed to degrade or destroy US space infrastructure in a conflict scenario.

China’s 2015 military reforms elevated the Strategic Support Force (SSF), which consolidated space, cyber, and electronic warfare under a single command, reflecting Beijing’s doctrinal understanding that space dominance is a prerequisite for victory in informatised warfare. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) views the ability to deny adversaries access to space-based systems as a critical warfighting advantage, particularly in any potential Taiwan contingency where US command, control, communications, and intelligence (C4ISR) networks would be central to American operational effectiveness.

Washington has responded with its own structural adjustments. The establishment of the US Space Force in December 2019 signalled a formal recognition that space had become a warfighting domain requiring dedicated institutional capacity. American space doctrine now encompasses not only the protection of existing assets but also the development of offensive and defensive capabilities designed to hold Chinese and Russian space infrastructure at risk. This mutual vulnerability has generated a dynamic that many analysts describe as a nascent space security dilemma, where the defensive modernisation of each side appears threatening to the other, accelerating the very competition it seeks to deter.

The dual-use character of space technology compounds this instability. The same launch vehicles that place commercial telecommunications satellites into orbit can deliver precision munitions or intelligence payloads. The satellite constellations that provide broadband connectivity to civilian users also furnish targeting data for military operations. This inseparability of civilian and military space functions means that any Chinese investment in space infrastructure carries potential military significance for American planners, and vice versa, making arms control dialogue in this domain extraordinarily difficult.

Economics and standard-setting

The strategic competition in space is inseparable from its economic counterpart. The global space economy was valued at over US$630 billion in 2023 and is projected to exceed US$1.8 trillion by 2035, driven by commercial satellite services, launch vehicles, remote sensing, space tourism and in-orbit manufacturing. Control of this economic frontier is a direct extension of the broader US-China rivalry over technological leadership and industrial supremacy.

China’s approach to space commercialisation follows a state-directed model that mirrors its broader industrial strategy. Under the Made in China 2025 initiative and its successor frameworks, space technology has been designated a strategic sector attracting enormous state subsidy, preferential financing, and institutional support from the PLA and civilian agencies alike. Chinese commercial space companies such as LandSpace, CAS Space, and iSpace operate within an ecosystem that blurs the line between private enterprise and state capacity, enabling rapid capability development with costs that Western commercial competitors struggle to match.

The US, by contrast, has pursued a more market-driven model anchored by NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo programmes and the extraordinary rise of SpaceX, which has transformed global launch economics and demonstrated that private innovation can accelerate state ambitions. 

However, the American model is not insulated from geopolitical friction. Export controls, technology transfer restrictions, and the exclusion of China from the International Space Station have driven Beijing to develop indigenous capabilities across the full space value chain, reducing its dependence on Western technology and creating a parallel technological ecosystem.

China has been active at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in filing early spectrum and orbital slot registrations, a practice that, while technically legal, is widely interpreted in Washington as an effort to pre-empt US and allied access to preferred geostationary and low-Earth orbit positions. The race for standards, frequency and orbital real estate is as much a competition of legal and diplomatic manoeuvre as it is of engineering.

Space alliances and governance

Space competition has become a powerful organising principle for alliance politics. The US used its space programme as an instrument of coalition-building, most visibly through the Artemis Accords, which by mid-2024 had attracted over 40 signatories committed to American-led norms for lunar exploration, resource utilisation and transparency in space operations. The Accords are not merely a technical framework — they are a geopolitical document that aligns participating states with an American vision of space governance and implicitly excludes China and Russia from a norms-setting process they had no role in designing.

China has responded by deepening its own network of space partnerships. The China-Russia joint lunar research station project announced in 2021 is the most prominent expression of an alternative space coalition, one that carries clear geopolitical undertones in the context of the broader strategic alignment between Moscow and Beijing. China has also expanded space cooperation with states across Africa, South Asia and Latin America through the Belt and Road Space Information Corridor, offering satellite imagery, navigation services, and ground station access as instruments of influence and dependency creation.

Pakistan, for instance, has benefited from Chinese satellite launch services and remote sensing data as part of a deepening defence and technology partnership that extends well into the space domain. Similar dynamics are visible in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Venezuela, and Belarus, where Chinese space infrastructure has become a component of broader bilateral relationships that subtly orient recipient states toward Beijing’s geopolitical preferences. The provision of satellite services carries with it a degree of intelligence sharing, technical dependency, and interoperability that, over time, builds the kind of structural alignment that formal alliances once required.

The US, meanwhile, has strengthened space cooperation with its most capable allies. The Combined Space Operations Centre (CSpOC) integrates space situational awareness and operational planning among the Five Eyes partners and selected NATO allies. The AUKUS arrangement has incorporated space and cyber dimensions alongside its headline submarine programme, reflecting a broader recognition that advanced technology sharing is the new currency of alliance management. Japan and Australia have made independent investments in space surveillance and communications satellites that are explicitly designed to complement US Space Force capabilities.

However, American alliance management in the space domain faces its own tensions. European partners are increasingly reluctant to subordinate their autonomous space ambitions — exemplified by the European Space Agency’s Galileo navigation system — to Washington’s preferred frameworks. Emerging powers such as India maintain a studied strategic autonomy that resists full alignment with either the Artemis Accords architecture or the China-Russia alternative, preferring bilateral partnerships with both Washington and Beijing, depending on the specific programme in question. The fragmentation of space governance into competing normative blocs is therefore not a clean binary but a complex, overlapping geometry of interests.

Space and future of global order

The space divide between the US and China is not a single contest but a composite of interlocking competitions spanning military capability, economic dominance, technological standard-setting and alliance architecture. China’s rapid ascent in space technology is not incidental to its broader grand strategy; it is integral to Beijing’s ambition to reshape the international order and reduce the structural advantages that American space supremacy has long underwritten. The US — already managing a complex global posture across multiple theatres — cannot afford to treat space as a secondary concern. 

What distinguishes this rivalry from earlier space races is its pervasiveness. Outer space is no longer an arena apart; it is woven into the sinews of modern economies, military operations and diplomatic relationships. The states that shape the rules, standards, and physical infrastructure of the space domain will exercise disproportionate influence over the international system below it. 

The space divide is not merely a measure of rockets launched or satellites deployed. It is a proxy for the deeper contest over who writes the rules for the coming century.

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