Richard Fisher finds a lot to worry about in China's recent test of exoatmospheric missile interception, arguing that the U.S. needs to take this "as a wake-up call that in the long term, China intends to challenge its strategic superiority in aerospace."

China said late Monday that it had successfully tested the nation’s first land-based missile defense system, announcing the news in a brief dispatch by Xinhua, the official news agency. “The test is defensive in nature and is not targeted at any country,” the item said.

China is preparing to build three times as many nuclear power plants in the coming decade as the rest of the world combined, a breakneck pace with the potential to help slow global warming. Yet inside and outside the country, the speed of the construction program has raised safety concerns. China has asked for international help in training a force of nuclear inspectors.

The heads of the U.S. and Chinese civil space agencies will exchange visits next year to discuss potential cooperation in space exploration, including human spaceflight, according to a U.S.-China joint statement issued Thursday.

The Chinese foreign ministry clarified that it would never participate in any kind of arms race in the outer space, in response to remarks from Xu Qiliang, commander of the People's Liberation Army Air Force that "space warfare was inevitable".

After a long spell of barely disguised animosity, American and Chinese military chiefs are seeking to put their relations on a more cordial footing, in line with ties between their civilian bosses but experts caution not to expect too much from China in terms of transparency about their military affairs.

China's recent cloud seeding effort has some researchers and international legal experts considering whether there should be more discussion now on extending existing international law and agreements (ex. the 1976 Environmental Modification Convention) to control the effects of unilateral geoengineering.

An arms race in space is an "historical inevitability" -- according to an interview with Xu Qiliang, a senior Chinese air force commander -- marking an apparent shift in Beijing's opposition to weaponising outer space.

Michio Kaku surveys the growing number nations planning competing missions to the moon (including Japan, China, India, and the U.S.) and argues that the growing lunar competition should motivate a re-examination of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty "before national rivalries and tensions heat up as we approach 2020."

Chinese leaders and strategists have been thinking of using land-based missiles to hit threatening sea targets for more than three decades. Indeed, the mere perception that China might have an antiship ballistic missile (ASBM) capability could be a game-changer, with profound consequences for deterrence, military operations, and the balance of power in the Western Pacific.