Webinar | Xi Thinks the Sky’s the Limit: Star Wars With Chinese Characteristics

America’s bid to return human beings to the moon was just set back by the catastrophic loss during launch of the spacecraft Elon Musk’s SpaceX built for the purpose. Worse yet, it appears increasingly possible that, by the time we’re ready to go back there, the Chinese Communist Party will have declared the place off limits – and be able to enforce it.

The Chinese Communists recently announced they are planning moon missions that will attempt to turn lunar dirt into bricks with which structures can be efficiently and inexpensively built. Inevitably, such structures will include fortifications from which claims of sovereignty like those Beijing has made following its seizure and weaponization of atolls in the South China Sea can be asserted and enforced.

Chinese panoramic mapping of Mars and growing capabilities to neutralize others’ satellites offer further indications of the scope of what is, at best, Beijing’s inherently “dual-use” space program. At worst, it is a fully militarized one with some civilian applications. The asymmetries between NASA’s assiduously peaceful scientific program and the capabilities the CCP is bringing to bear could hardly be more stark – or ominous.

This CPDC webinar addresses the unfolding Chinese Communist space program and the prospects that it will assure Xi Jinping the dominance of the High Frontier to which he clearly aspires, to our mortal peril. 

Moderator:

- Frank Gaffney, Founder and Executive Chairman, Center for Security Policy; Vice Chairman, Committee on the Present Danger: China

Panelists:

- J.R. Nyquist, Author, Origins of the Fourth World War, essayist at JRNyquist.blog
• Topic: “The CCP’s Strategic Interests in Space”

- Richard Fisher, Senior Fellow for Asia, International Assessment and Strategy Center; and author, “China’s Military Modernization: Building for Global and Regional Reach”
• Topic: “The CCP’s Agenda for Dominating the Earth-Moon System and Beyond: The Growing Threat”

- Colonel Robert Maness, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), former Commanding Officer of a bomber squadron; former Vice Commander of America’s largest Airborne Intelligence Wing; former Commander, Kirtland Air Force Base
• Topic: “The Strategic Implications of a Chinese Lunar ‘No-Go Zone’ and Beijing Otherwise Controlling the High Frontier”

- Lieutenant General Steven Kwast, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), Former Commander, Air Education and Training Command; former Commander and President, Air University; and combat command pilot
• Topic: “Houston, We Have a Problem – What Must America Do Now to Secure Its Vital Space Interests?”