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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Center for Asian Studies
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.
The Centre for Asian Studies maintains close institutional links with counterpart research institutes in Europe and Asia, and its researchers regularly carry out fieldwork in the region.
The Center organizes closed-door roundtables, expert-level seminars and a number of public events, including an Annual Conference, that welcome experts from Asia, Europe and the United States. The work of Center’s researchers, as well as that of their partners, is regularly published in the Center’s electronic journal Asie.Visions.
Space Program
Space has become a crucial theme in the main international think tanks’ research activities as it entails important strategic, economic, and technological issues.
Since 2001, Ifri has integrated space in its research, notably by ensuring that the political dimension of scientific and human exploration programs is emphasized, and by supporting reflections on the Code of Conduct for Outter Space Activities.
Today, as part of its research agenda, Ifri mobilizes several of its centers and programs to transversally tackle the theme of space, through three main inputs:
- the competition of powers, driven by the Sino-American rivalry;
- critical points related to mastery of space, such as the issue of autonomous access to space or the mega-constellations necessary for the digital revolution;
- these developments’ challenges for Europe and its status as a space power.
Since the Summer 2020, Ifri has been coordinating a tripartite European Space Governance Initiative, together with two other renowned European think tanks: the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP) in Germany and the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) in Italy.
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Since the launch of Canada’s inaugural Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) in November 2022, Ottawa has moved—with notable but uneven momentum—from the margins of regional engagement to a position of growing strategic visibility. The Strategy, backed by an initial $2.3 billion five-year investment, reflects a long-overdue recognition: Canada is a Pacific nation whose prosperity and security are inextricably linked to the stability of the world’s most economically and strategically consequential region.