Chinese official endorses cooperation with the U.S. on space exploration

WASHINGTON — A Chinese official expressed willingness to cooperate with the United States in space exploration, interest that appears unlikely to be reciprocated.

Speaking at the Beyond Earth Symposium here Nov. 13, Zhou Guolin, minister counselor for science and technology at the Chinese Embassy here, said China was open to some level of cooperation with the United States on spaceflight, without going into specifics.

“China welcomes participation from space agencies all over the world, including the United States of America, of course,” he said. “History has proved that isolation is not a solution, and that cooperation is the only solution to go forward.”

Interaction between NASA and China has historically been limited. It includes a 2006 visit by then-administrator Mike Griffin to China as well as working group meetings from 2008 to 2010 on topics such as the exchange of Earth and space science data. That was largely severed with the passage by Congress 2011 of the so-called “Wolf Amendment” that sharply restricted bilateral cooperation between NASA and Chinese organizations.

“This is a pity,” Zhou said, but noted that “pragmatic” exchanges have continued since then, such as “cooperation on Mars probes” in 2021. That is a reference to exchanges between NASA and the China National Space Administration to deconflict operations of China’s new Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter with existing NASA spacecraft there.

“Although China-U.S. space cooperation has experienced many twists and turns, we are still optimistic and still believe that, with wisdom and joint efforts from both countries, China and U.S. space cooperation will be able to break through all the barriers, clear the clouds and see the sunshine,” he said.

Zhou offered no formal proposals for cooperation between China and the U.S. in space. Most of his speech reviewed ongoing Chinese space activities and future plans, such as future missions to the moon and Mars and land humans on the moon “before 2030.”

The Wolf Amendment has persisted in annual appropriations bills since 2011 with little effort to remove or significantly change it. NASA’s current administrator, Bill Nelson, told a House committee in 2023 he supported the provision.

“I think the Wolf Amendment, as it’s written, is adequate,” he said in an April 2023 House appropriations hearing. “I think the Wolf Amendment is sufficient for where it is right now.”

Nelson has, on other occasions, warned of China landing humans on the moon ahead of NASA’s own human lunar return, suggesting that China might lay claim to desirable locations at the lunar south pole and prevent NASA from accessing them. He also used an image from China’s Zhurong Mars rover at a 2021 House hearing to warn the U.S. “about our need to get off our duff” on lunar exploration.

“I would say that NASA Administrator Nelson is about two degrees to the right of me on the China topic. It’s hard to be there, but he is,” said Greg Autry, author of the book Red Moon Rising that warns of a space race between China and the United States, during an on-stage interview at the symposium later the same day.

Autry, who served on the transition team for the first Trump administration in 2016 and is currently associate provost of space commercialization and strategy at the University of Central Florida, said he favored competition over cooperation, arguing that the former stimulated progress and the latter did not.

That competition included, he said, human missions to the moon. “We cannot fail in this. The Chinese would get a lot of advantage if they get back there first.”

The incoming Trump administration has not discussed space policy to any degree since the Nov. 5 election, but had indicated that, in general it will take a hard stance towards China. That includes the selection of Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.), often described as a “China hawk,” as national security adviser.