19 - China and the Non-weaponization of Outer Space

Summary

This chapter examines China’s differential approach vis-à-vis developing and developed countries in advancing its normative agenda on non-weaponization in outer space before the Conference on Disarmament and the UN General Assembly. Pursuant to the logic of the democratization of international relations, China has gained the majority support of developing countries for its agenda around their commonly shared values of peace and development and through other forms of functional cooperation in their outer space activities – increasing its international legitimacy in their eyes. Conversely, China has yet to gain the trust of technologically advanced – developed – nations in order to give its future regulatory framework governing peaceful relationships in outer space its much-needed normativity. Instead, past disarmament efforts in outer space during the Cold War can guide China’s norm-entrepreneurship where it must seek consensus among the major space powers, the United States in particular, on the basis of trust. Without such a fertile soil, however, any rules on the prevention of an arms race in outer space cannot take root.