When a Chinese fighter plane came within 10 feet of a U.S. B-52 bomber over the South China Sea last week, the U.S. military swiftly condemned the “unsafe and unprofessional” intercept. But when it comes to China’s space operation, Washington first wants to see universal safety rules put in place. Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations for the U.S. Space Force, told Nikkei in a recent interview that China has recognized the American military’s heavy reliance on space capabilities for intelligence gathering, early warnings and communications. And Beijing has made substantial investments to neutralize the U.S. space advantage. “The pace with which they’ve been able to put those capabilities in play, and the scale at which they are putting those capabilities, is the most alarming,” Saltzman said of Chinese space capabilities. It is a “fair” assumption that China would target U.S. space capabilities to disrupt operations and mobilization in the early stages of a conflict, the four-star general added. Immediately after the Russian invasion began in Ukraine, Moscow conducted cyberattacks against ground networks that enabled Ukrainian space operations, Saltzman said, demonstrating that space is critical for a wide spectrum of military operations. The Pentagon’s annual report on Chinese military power, released in mid-October, asserts that Beijing is developing a range of counterspace capabilities including directed-energy weapons, satellite jammers and ground-based anti-satellite missiles. While expressing concerns about China’s experimentation with satellite-grabbing robotic arms, Saltzman stopped short of calling it unsafe. He said that’s not just because Beijing has practiced on its own satellites, but also because unlike air and maritime domains, there are limited universal rules governing space operations.

Full report : U.S. Space Force chief urges universal rules to keep China in check.