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US Turning Space Into New Battlefield, Justifies Its Supremacy Bid - Beijing

BEIJING (Sputnik) - By accusing Russia and China of creating threats in space, Washington justifies its aspiration to gain military supremacy and develop advanced weapons, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's spokesman, Geng Shuang, said on Wednesday.
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"In fact, they [the United States] are just trying to find a pretext [to justify] its aspirations to establish unilateral military supremacy and to carry out research and develop advanced weapons", Geng said at a briefing, commenting on US assistant secretary of state Yleem Poblete's claim about China developing ground-based missiles able to target low-Earth-orbit satellites.

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He slammed the United States for its baseless accusations against Russia and China.

"I would like to remind you that this is the United States that turns space into a new battlefield. It has already set up the headquarters of the Space Force and is now in the process of the Space Force creation. It also plans to station laser weapons in space. You don't even have to point out who exacerbates the risk of space militarisation and weaponisation and jeopardises space security", Geng added.

The spokesman also said that China had never participated in an arms race in space and had no intention to do so.

"China has always been committed to peaceful use of outer space and to the prevention of space weaponisation and of an arms race in space… China and Russia are working together on promoting a draft agreement to prevent weapons from being put in space. China has never participated in any form of an arms race in space and does not intend to do so", Geng added.

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The statement comes just several days after US Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanah announced that Washington created a new Space Development Agency (SDA) in order to "define and monitor" future threat-driven space architecture and accelerate development while reducing bureaucratic overlap and inefficiency. Eventually, the SDA would be transferred to the proposed US Space Force, which must be approved by Congress.

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