US Asleep While China Prepares "Assassin's Mace"

No-so-peacefully rising China is actively pursuing an "Assassin's Mace" (shashoujian) space warfare program--the elusive term refers to an astonishing array of futuristic technologies--while advocating arms control accords aimed at preventing the United States from developing and deploying defensive and offensive space-based weapons.

And the US anti-missile defense crowd is cooperating with the Chinese strategy, effectively playing into the hands of America's enemies and paving the way for eventual Chinese military dominance of the planet.

We dare to call this perfidy by its real name--treason--for the betrayers and saboteurs of America's defense are aware of the evidence of China's space warfare program, but choose to deny or downplay the information.

The amazing thing is just how much of the proof of what China is up to is in the public domain, along with thorough, insightful analyses by American experts. The work of a brilliant US Defense Department consultant, Michael Pillsbury, is a prime example of the latter. He says his concerns that China may decide to develop space weapons for use against the US stem from books written by three Chinese military colonels over the past six years.

The People's Liberation Army officers advocate the use of secret anti-satellite weapons, without warning, against the US.

"What they are doing in their books is saying that if China faces a hostile United States in the future, we Chinese may need to have some way to deter the United States from either attacking us, or coming to the defense of Taiwan," Pillsbury tells Voice of America. "If we Chinese ever face that situation, one good way to deter the United States - they use the term "bring America to its knees" - is to have a "shock attack," or a "shock and awe" attack, to borrow a term we [Americans] used during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, on US-based satellites."

Pillsbury says the colonels imply that no such system exists in China today. Let's hope he's right.

In testimony to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (commonly called the China Commission) Thursday, Pillsbury said even a small-scale Chinese attack against US satellites could have a catastrophic effect on US military forces and the US economy. He said it is not clear how quickly, if at all, Washingtoncould launch replacement satellites for those that had been incapacitated in orbit by such an attack.

"We could be better prepared, is how I would put it," he said.

In January, China test fired a ground-based missile that pulverized one of its own satellites. The test was believed to be the first of its kind in two decades by any nation and raised concerns about the vulnerability of US satellites and a possible arms race in space.

Pillsbury's research is beyond chilling; it is terrifying, despite his reasoned, academic approach to a topic that natrually lends itself to popular exploitation. His in-depth report, commissioned by the China Commission and submitted in January of this year, covering such weapons as high-energy laser guns and orbiting ICBMs capable of striking targets on earth at any time, could inspire a slew of fact-based comic books, novels, movies and TV programs. If only the research would also inspire our so-called leaders to wake up to the looming threat.

Ecerpts from "An Assessment of China's Anti-Satellite and Space Warfare Programs" appear below:

"Twenty articles and three books published during the target period were selected as significant. From these books and articles, thirty specific recommendations for strategies or specific Chinese space weapons to employ against US vulnerabilities were identified and translated.... The following conclusions may be made from this report:

"While China has publicly assumed a leadership position in international activities to ban space weapons, there is an active group within China not only advocating the weaponization of space but also putting forth specific proposals for implementation of a Chinese space based weapons program.

"The individuals authoring the source works cited herein represent the Chinese space war “hawk” group and may constitute the bulk of it, although the extent to which these proposals are being accepted sympathetically is not known.

"The recommendations cited in this report are courses of action being proposed publicly within China. Common threads of logic and approach, shared assumptions, use of similar expressions in key areas, and the scope of the work represented are indications of collusion among these individuals and possibly of organization.

"There may be covert activity in the development of space weaponry and space warfare plans which is not represented in open source literature, in fact the literature suggests that this might be so.

"Chinese development and deployment of systems and doctrines for space warfare may be partially in response to a perceived US threat, but US resistance to weaponization of space seems irrelevant in the articles cited.

"Chinese attitudes toward weaponization of space have been widely studied by the US, and several models have been proposed, based at least partially on consideration of some of the documents cited in this report. Other than common source material, these models share little and are even contradictory.

"There is an immediate opportunity for diplomatic action to forestall an inappropriate Chinese response to a perceived US threat and to engage elements of the Chinese policy forming community in productive and mutually beneficial confrontation.

"There are profound military preparedness implications associated with Chinese public advocacy of pre-emptive or deterrent attacks on specific US targets, both military and civilian, both independently and in support of theater combat operations.

"This open source literature survey found no assertion that China currently possesses any type of ASAT weapons, or that the government of China has ordered the production of any such weapons. However, an unattributed interview in October 2006 at the Zhuhai air show that appeared in a Chinese owned newspaper bluntly stated China has such weapons now...."