The Simons Centre collaborated
with the Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies, Department of
Political Science, US Air Force Academy, to convene a conference in Vancouver
titled “China, Space and Strategy,” on September 4, 2008.This workshop brought together 50-60
specialists on China and
space issues, including participants from the US,
China, and Canada, representing governments,
space agencies, and civil and commercial sectors.
The Simons Centre also convened a
second meeting on September 4, 2008, drawing together a subset of participants that
included all the previous day’s Chinese and Canadian representatives.
The agenda for the first day’s meeting
examined civil, commercial and security questions, including topics such as the
Chinese ASAT test in early 2007 and the general problems of debris management,
space situational awareness, and prospects for international cooperation to
reduce space-related conflicts.The
second day’s meeting focused on Canadian outlooks on these issues and
implications for Canadian policy-making, including both Canada-China space
relations and potential Canadian roles in facilitating US-China space relations.
Following are links pertaining to
the second day’s Canada-focused meeting, including the full conference report (with
agenda and participants listed) and a shorter conference summary.Discussions were held under Chatham House
rules and hence specific participants are not attributed in the reports’ discussion
summaries.
The Simons Centre is grateful to
the Security and Defence Forum Special Project Fund, Department of National
Defence, for support to convene the Canada-focused meeting.
Historically, the evolution of
space security is of vital concern for Canada
in two dimensions: 1) relationship to the US
on space-based earth observation for continental defense; 2) diplomatic
initiatives regarding “weaponization” of space and consequent concerns over
certain US
space technology development intentions.Increasingly, China
figures prominently in US outlooks on the future of space security, which in
turn bears directly on both these Canadian concerns.This workshop directly addressed the
relevance of the emerging Chinese role in space, and US outlooks and responses
to that emergence, to Canadian defense and security outlooks.
The meeting also uniquely addressed
the relevance of Chinese activities specifically to Canadian defense and
security concerns, examining explicitly a connection more often made indirectly
through the mediating factor of relations with the US.The meeting illuminated the implications for Canada’s
security and defence of a wide range of developments with respect to China’s
emergence as a space power and global reactions to that emergence.These implications include the obvious areas
of North American continental defense and global space arms race concerns, but
also the security implications of civil and commercial developments (e.g.
international trade on dual-use technologies, the potential for civil
cooperation to foster broader relations and ameliorate security tensions,
etc.).
The reports of the meeting are
intended to help broaden debate over Canadian space-related security and
defense issues by highlighting China-specific dimensions of those
concerns.This broadening in turn will
help foster attention to more comprehensive and longer-term outlooks on
Canadian space-related security and defense issues, providing a stronger
context for public policy debate on nearer term issues.
