US calls space a wild west. China says policing it normalises warfare
- There have been calls to establish rules governing behaviour in space, where there have been close encounters between rivals’ satellites
- But China views American complaints as an avoidance of the real problem in space: its militarisation
This incident was another case of the frequent attempts at spying and counter-espionage in space among the United States, Russia and China, and added to concerns that risks of disastrous collisions in space were growing in line with the space race itself.
The US has described some approaches to its satellites by Russian spacecraft as “irresponsible” and there have been calls for some form of international code of conduct in space, similar to the 1972 Incidents at Sea agreement between the US and the former Soviet Union.
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So far, the only international agreement on this issue is the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which forbids states from placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in space or on celestial bodies such as the moon.