China and Russia Are Teaming Up in the New Space Race

Russia and China are looking hard at how they should allocate defense spending to contest the U.S. militarily, from the Arctic to the Baltics to the South China Sea. Near the top of both national shopping lists are military operations and assets in space, and the most intriguing aspect of their decision to look to the stars is that they are going to do it together.

Most notably, the two nations agreed a few weeks ago to build a joint research station on the moon. In an online statement, the China National Space Administration said the base would be open to “all interested countries and international partners,” which sounds relatively benign. But if you look at recent Russian and Chinese space operations, they have a distinctly military bent. And the idea of general political and military cooperation between the two is gaining speed, from massive war games on the Siberian border to warship deployments in the eastern Mediterranean and the North Atlantic.