Hong Kong, July 15 -- China views space as a critical military domain, just as it does the land, sea and air.

While China's space program is a source of national pride, its authoritarian leader Chairman Xi Jinping aims to displace the USA as the leading space power. This explains the enormous investment Beijing is pouring into scientific, civil and military space assets.

So what progress is China making? The US Space Force, in an updated space threat fact sheet published in April, described China's and Russia's advances as "a serious threat to US national security interests in, from and to space". In fact, the release warned starkly, "China is the pacing challenge and is rapidly improving its space capabilities to track and target US mi...