Space Battle

China sees “unchecked opportunity” beyond Earth, and the U.S. must keep on top of it, a military chief has warned

- - by DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW

CHINA'S SPACE INFRASTRUCTURE in Latin America is the biggest outside of China and raises questions that need answers, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command has said in rare public comments.

Admiral Alvin Holsey said SOUTHCOM would soon establish its own Space South command. “Space is really huge for me,” he told the annual Hemispheric Security Conference at Florida International University, Miami, in May.

The scale of China’s regional space infrastructure was noted by a Newsweek investigation in December into a joint China-Chile observatory being built by a Chinese state-owned enterprise in Chile—whose authorities put the project on hold after the report.