The current and the evolving counterspace threat posed by China to U.S. military operations in the Asia-Pacific theater and outside is extremely serious. The threat ranks on par with the dangers posed by Chinese offensive cyber operations to the United States more generally. The diversity and the complexity of China's counterspace programs make them particularly problematic, because they span the gamut all the way from direct-ascent and coorbital ASAT [anti-satellite] programs, which receive enormous attention, to equally challenging threats like electronic warfare intended to paralyze U.S. satellite communications, to more recondite dangers, such as directed-energy weapons and radiofrequency weapons and computer network attack capabilities. The incentives that drive China to pursue its counterspace programs are strong and will only intensify over time because China views itself as being in a geopolitical competition with the United States and believes that it must prepare itself for a possible conflict with a superior U.S. military.

People's Republic of China's counterspace program and the implications for U.S. National Security : joint hearing before the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces meeting jointly with Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, second session, hearing held January 28, 2014.

The devastating terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and America's first domestic bio-terrorism mail attacks have shifted America's attention and resources to the immediate threat of international terrorism. But we shouldn't be fooled. Since the publication of the hardcover edition of The China Threat in November of 2000, one thing remains very much the same: the People's Republic of China is the most serious long-term national security challenge to the United States. In fact, after the events of September 11, the China threat should seem all the more real, for Communist China is one of the most important backers of states that support international terrorism. —From the new introduction by the author

MacDonald recommends options and policies that will promote options and policies that will promote American security interests in space. He argues that the U.S. needs to take priority defensive military space measures to offset potential Chinese anti-satellite and related capabilities.

The U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China offers access in PDF format to the three volume, unclassified version of its final report. The report asserts that China has stolen design information about American thermonuclear weapons.

The People's Republic of China (PRC) has made significant advances in its space program and is emerging as a space power. With preservation of its monopoly on power as an overriding goal, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bolsters its legitimacy through achievements in space. The Chinese military manages China's space program and there is significant overlap between civilian and military space operations, which mutually reinforce one another. An increasingly sophisticated R&D and industrial establishment supplies the People's Liberation Army (PLA) with military space systems. The PLA General Armaments Department (GAD) appears to oversee space systems acquisitions and operations. Other important organizations in the space program include the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC). As a rough NASA counterpart, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) facilitates international exchanges and cooperative programs with other space-faring nations.