A new agreement for Kazakhstan to join Chinese-led plans to build and operate a research base on the moon could set the stage for deepening cooperation between the two countries as Beijing makes strides toward becoming a leading power in space.
The July 3 agreement was signed on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and admitted Kazakhstan as the 12th member of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), a Chinese-led initiative with Russia's Roskosmos for a lunar base that was announced in 2021 and includes Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Serbia, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand, and Venezuela.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a joint statement that, as part of the deal, Beijing and Astana would "support exchanges and cooperation between the two countries' aerospace agencies…in the peaceful use of outer space" and to "promote mutually beneficial cooperation in the moon and deep space."
The Kazakh Digital Development, Innovation, and Aerospace Industry Ministry revealed new details of this cooperation on August 5, saying that Beijing and Astana would explore the commercial use of each other's spaceports and Kazakhstan would also be part of the development and launch of a lunar telescope project.
The addition of Kazakhstan bolsters China's lunar exploration plans and puts the Central Asian country on a trajectory to further integrate into China's booming space industry, which is part of a drive by Beijing that experts say is motivated by an ambition to rival the United States.
"China intends to equal and eventually surpass the United States as a space power," Bruce McClintock, a former defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and senior researcher on space policy at the RAND Corporation, told RFE/RL. "The recent return of a lunar sample mission from the moon demonstrates China's financial commitment to lunar exploration and their technical ability to achieve their long-term goals."
A China National Space Administration staff member assembles a model of the Chang'e 6 lunar probe ahead of a June press conference about China's lunar exploration program.
The return to Earth of China's Chang'e-6 lunar module in June was the latest accomplishment as Beijing aims to finish building the ILRS in the 2030s. The China National Space Administration also said it plans to send astronauts to the moon before 2030 and Beijing established the International Lunar Research Station Cooperation Organization (ILRSCO) in April, a Chinese-led body to coordinate lunar missions with member states.
The plans around the ILRS are seen as a response to NASA's Artemis Program, a U.S.-led initiative that aims to send a crewed mission to the moon by 2025, with a continuous presence by 2028. As part of its own diplomatic push for space, Washington has gotten more than 40 countries to sign the Artemis Accords, a set of principles for the exploration and use of outer space.
"The Chinese are trying to build their own duplicative organizations as a race develops to see who can get the most support for their programs," Eva Seiwert, an analyst at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) think tank, told RFE/RL. "For Kazakhstan, it's clear that they see China as a future source of knowledge, training, and financing for their space industry."
Liftoff For China
Kazakhstan has been an integral part of the Soviet and Russian space programs for nearly 70 years.
Baikonur, an expansive complex located in southern Kazakhstan, has shot hundreds of rockets into space and holds a special position as a launching pad for some of space flight's most historic achievements, such as the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, the world's first satellite, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's first human journey to outer space in 1961.
Camels graze in front of a spacecraft tracking station at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Baikonur remained a launch site for Russia's Roskosmos, which maintained a dominant position within the space industry.
But both Russia and Baikonur's places have begun to shift.
The space complex has been at the center of a contract dispute between Russia and Kazakhstan for years, and Roskosmos is planning to move its space launches to Russian territory.
At the same time, Russia's space program has faced funding cuts, technical setbacks, and scandals. Western sanctions first brought against Russia in 2014 and expanded following its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine have further dimmed its space program as it has been cut off from some essential Western-made components.
These changes have taken place as China's own space program leapt forward in recent years, with billions of dollars being invested.
SEE ALSO: Russia's Moon Crash 'Speaks Volumes': A Storied Space Program Falls Short. Again.When the space partnership between Russia and China first gained traction in 2014 and gradually grew over the years, it culminated in joint projects like the ILRS.
"I don't think Russia has many other choices," Juliana Suess, a fellow for space security at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank, told RFE/RL. "Russia has a lot of legacy and expertise, but that's all very much behind it. When it comes to space, Russia looks more like the junior partner in the China-Russia relationship."
Beijing, meanwhile, has continued to broaden its outreach, even adding a space component to its multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as it has looked to build up and link its space industry with other countries.
This has included deploying satellites, building ground stations, erecting data centers, and training foreign space personnel as part of the foundations of a Beijing-led space network.
"China is actively building up its status as a space power, and this lunar base that Kazakhstan has signed up to is just one piece of a constant effort for space soft power," Suess said.
A New Era In Space
While Kazakhstan signing on to the ILRS marks another step forward for China's space ambitions, Bleddyn Bowen, an associate professor specializing in space policy at the University of Leicester, says the other aspects of the agreement reached between Astana and Beijing may be more significant in the long run.
"The moon is for scientific or research projects," Bowen, also a fellow at RUSI, told RFE/RL. "Whereas a launch service agreement would mean putting more satellites into the Earth's orbit, which matters because it provides the daily infrastructure that we rely on and is central to the space economy."
Covered on a launch pad, the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft sits atop a Long March rocket near a sign reading "China" at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China in May 2023.
For Beijing, a crucial area for enhancing its capacity for competition in space with the United States is the Beidou Satellite Navigation System (BDS), which is China's answer to the American GPS, Russian GLONASS, or the European Galileo navigation systems.
Widespread adoption of either system carries immense commercial value and China wants BDS to be used for aircraft, auto, and ship navigation, as well as humanitarian and disaster assistance, agricultural improvement, and weather forecasts. As a report by the U.S. Air Force's China Aerospace Studies Institute noted, all 30 BDS global networking satellites have been in place since 2020, and more than 120 countries have begun using BDS.
Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev (right) and Chinese leader Xi Jinping attend an official welcome ceremony in Astana on July 3 ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
For Kazakhstan, the drift toward Beijing began in 2013 when Chinese and Kazakh private space companies began cooperating. The collaboration has accelerated as Russia's space program has failed to keep pace with China's.
"China is much more attractive now as an investor with money to spend," Bowen said. "China is also a massive market where anything that Kazakhstan's space industry produces is likely to find a use."
Using Kazakh territory for space launches is also important as Russia looks to divest from the Baikonur complex.
While Russia has a lease on the facility until 2050, China is currently working to boost launch-pad access around the world for commercial space providers and Kazakhstan, which shares a long border with China, also hosts the Sary Shagan anti-ballistic missile test site.
"Kazakhstan needs to diversify and bring in new countries to pay for what Russia used to provide," said Bowen. "Partnering more with the Chinese is part of that plan for the future."