By any rational metric, the United States is the world's dominant space power by quite a distance. Of the world’s roughly 1,100 active satellites, the United States possesses more than 400, half of them government-operated. Chinese organizations, by contrast, maintain fewer than 70 satellites, and probably only a dozen or so are strictly military in nature.
Still, China is aggressively expanding and diversifying its space arsenal—and the Pentagon is, officially at least, worried.
Chinese organizations are currently lofting as many as 15 (admittedly short-lived) spacecraft into orbit every year. Moreover, China is making big strides in space weaponry. In 2007, China successfully tested a rocket-based anti-satellite weapon. That test destroyed a decommissioned Chinese weather satellite, scattering thousands of pieces of dangerous, slow-decaying orbital debris as a two-decade reminder of Beijing's space ambitions.
Read more at The Diplomat
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