The Chinese entrepreneurs, researchers, and policymakers driving the country’s rise as a space power.
The Zhuque-3 reusable Y2 carrier rocket blasts off at the Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone in Northwest China, August 19, 2026. Credit: Landspace
Outer space has long been a priority for China. In the 1950s, the Communist Party coined the term “two bombs, one satellite” as a signpost for its scientific aspirations: develop an atomic bomb, a missile, and a satellite.
Today, China is aiming much higher, with the help of the private sector. Beijing ended its decades-long state monopoly of the space industry in 2014, since when some six hundred commercial space firms have been formed, working in tandem with state-owned enterprise
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From Mike Mansfield to Max Baucus and Steve Daines, Montana has been the unlikely source of America’s most influential China-hand senators over the past half-century. But amidst spy balloons, trade wars and mutual paranoia, being a proponent for rational and beneficial relations between the two countries has never been harder.
The former CIA officer says Washington has lacked a clear strategy towards intelligence on China, in contrast to Beijing’s approach — and that Congress needs to act.
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