Since 2006, the US Air Force Academy’s Eisenhower Center for Space and Defense Studies has sponsored an annual workshop examining the strategic impact and implications of China’s space program. This workshop series has blossomed into a Track-II process, with participants from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and unofficial US government presence.
A key focus of many of the discussions during these workshops has been the prospects for Sino-US cooperation in space. This issue has gained prominence since the 2007 PRC ASAT test, and the US subsequent 2008 American destruction of a malfunctioning satellite. Sino-US space cooperation is seen as potentially serving a confidence-building function, allowing the two sides to familiarize themselves with each other.
This paper will examine some of the proposals laid out in these workshops for proposal, and discuss the potential pitfalls that confront them. It will then make some suggestions about how cooperation might be fostered
