China has strongly criticised the United States after its Space Force confirmed for the first time that it has deployed weapons into orbit, with Beijing warning against turning space into a battlefield and calling for an end to what it described as war preparations beyond Earth’s atmosphere.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told reporters that Beijing opposed the weaponisation and militarisation of outer space, urging Washington to halt the expansion of its military capabilities in the domain. The response came after the US Space Force issued a statement naming both China and Russia as strategic threats, alleging that Beijing continues to build up its space and counterspace capabilities as part of a broader military modernisation drive, while describing Moscow as viewing dominance in space as central to future conflicts.
The US statement offered few specifics about the nature or scale of the weapons now in orbit, describing its approach broadly as space control, covering both offensive and defensive capabilities meant to contest and influence the space domain using a mix of kinetic and non-kinetic means.
Russia also weighed in on the development, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov calling for space to remain free of weapons altogether and expressing hope for broader international cooperation toward full demilitarisation of the domain.
Concerns over an arms race in orbit are not new. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty bars weapons of mass destruction from being stationed in space, but it does not extend to other categories of weaponry, leaving a regulatory gap that has persisted for decades. Since the treaty’s signing, the US, Russia, China and India have each tested anti-satellite capabilities at different points, underscoring the absence of clear international rules governing conventional weapons in orbit. Legal experts have noted that the issue is likely to feature at the United Nations disarmament conference scheduled for November, even as differences persist between countries pushing for a formal treaty on space weapons and those favouring voluntary norms of responsible behaviour instead.
