China in International Space Cooperation: Heading South
In only three decades, China has become one of the world’s top space powers. At the turn of the 2020s, almost suddenly, China became the main challenger to the US, although with a significant remaining gap to bridge.
With the West increasingly closing to space cooperation, China is accelerating its pivot to the Global South, where all its diplomacy is now focused, including the BRI and the new Global Development Initiative (GDI) and Global Security Initiative (GSI). China may succeed in developing space cooperation with countries from the Global South, and could contribute to building the space powers of tomorrow. However, this will not suffice to replace the cooperation it used to have with traditional space powers, and the political and technological state of Russia today does not help. China may soon have to rely only on itself. The bright side for Beijing is that it is already used to doing so.
>> Download the full report to read this chapter on ISPI's website : The Sky Is Not the Limit. Geopolitics and Economics of the New Space Race
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Asia is a nerve center for multiple global economic, political and security challenges. The Center for Asian Studies provides documented expertise and a platform for discussion on Asian issues to accompany decision makers and explain and contextualize developments in the region for the sake of a larger public dialogue.
The Center's research is organized along two major axes: relations between Asia's major powers and the rest of the world; and internal economic and social dynamics of Asian countries. The Center's research focuses primarily on China, Japan, India, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, but also covers Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula and the Pacific Islands.
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