Ali Stickings

“China has gone its own way,” says Alexandra Stickings, a research fellow at the think-tank RUSI. But its goals are often tied in with China’s state apparatus. “There is an ambition for China to become a global space power,” Stickings says. “Of course, in China, the line between civilian and military ambitions is not clear cut.”

Though there are guidelines in the Outer Space Treaty, which outline that all lunar expeditions “will be used exclusively for peaceful purposes”, Stickings notes that anti-satellite weaponry could feasibly be placed there in future. The US in particular will be watching closely. “It’s not an outright assumption of aggression,” she says. “But if China has the capability to create a base on the moon, that is going to be a cause for security concerns.”

The recent Russian incident is a very good example of all the activity we are seeing in space. Space is such an important environment for defence, for national security and the competitiion we see. But it's also an example of the uncertainty that comes with any activities we see in space and why it's so difficult to say with absolute certainty that this was a weapon's test or that we're seeing warfare reaching space. It's a very very complicated subject and it's very dfficult to really understand what's going on.