The short version

• On 23 October 2026 China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs published “China’s Position on Strengthening Outer Space Governance”, a ten-point paper announced the same evening by Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the 2026 Global Governance Forum in Xiong’an.
• The paper calls for a legally binding arms control instrument for outer space, opposes the weaponisation of space and says no State should “abuse its domestic law” to impose unilateral sanctions on other States’ space activities.
• Point 8 asks States to regulate commercial space activity so that companies do not “intervene in the armed conflicts and internal affairs of other States in an unlawful way”. It names no company, but the target is easy to guess.
• The paper is a diplomatic position, not a treaty or a Chinese licensing rule. Its value for lawyers is as a map of what Beijing will push for at the UN, and what it will resist.

China has said most of this before, in speeches, joint statements and draft treaties tabled with Russia. What is new is that Beijing has now put its whole view of space governance into a single, numbered document under the Foreign Ministry’s name, and tied it to President Xi Jinping’s Global Governance Initiative. For anyone who follows negotiations at the UN in Vienna and Geneva, it is the clearest statement yet of the agenda China will bring to them.

What was published

The paper, titled China’s Position on Strengthening Outer Space Governance, appeared on the Foreign Ministry’s website on 23 October 2026. It runs to about 1,100 words: a short preamble and ten numbered points.

Wang Yi trailed it the same evening in his keynote address at the opening of the 2026 Global Governance Forum (Xiong’an), which marked the first anniversary of the Global Governance Initiative. Announcing eight “practical actions”, he said the sixth would be the space paper, adding: “We would like to see the rules of outer space governance keep pace with exploration, reflect broad participation, and benefit all countries.” Earlier in the speech he described the deep sea, the polar regions and outer space as “the common heritage of humanity”.

Asked about it on 26 October, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called the paper “a major step by China to deliver on the four major global initiatives”, according to the official transcript, and said it “provides a blueprint for relevant discussions and formulation of rules by the international community.” The Global Governance Initiative itself was announced by President Xi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Tianjin in September 2025.

The preamble sets the tone. It says the existing international legal regime for outer space “is increasingly lagging behind”, and that “the risk of an arms race in outer space and the trend of turning outer space into a new theater of conflict have become the gravest threat and challenge to space security.”

The ten points in brief

The headings are: committing to openness and shared benefit; respecting the rights of all States; abiding by the international rule of law; advancing innovation and development; safeguarding common security; preventing armed conflicts; reducing misunderstanding and misperception; regulating commercial space activity; deepening international cooperation; and promoting global governance.

Several are general statements about capacity building and development that any spacefaring State could sign, including a call to implement the UN’s Space2030 Agenda. The rest have real legal content, and they are where I would focus.

Arms control: the old treaty proposal in new clothes

Point 3 asks States to “oppose the weaponization of outer space or turning it into a new theater of conflict”. Point 6 asks them to “oppose offensive military policies in outer space”, to reaffirm “the prevention of the threat or use of force against outer space objects”, and to support “the conclusion of international legal instrument on arms control in outer space.”

That language tracks the draft Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space, the Threat or Use of Force against Outer Space Objects (PPWT), which China and Russia first tabled at the Conference on Disarmament in 2008 and updated in CD/1985, dated 12 June 2014. The United States set out its objections later that year, criticising among other things the lack of a verification regime. The draft has gone nowhere since.

The paper does not mention anti-satellite tests, and that silence matters. China’s own test on 11 January 2007 destroyed the Fengyun-1C weather satellite and, in the words of NASA’s Orbital Debris Quarterly News, created “the single worst contamination of low Earth orbit (LEO) during the past 50 years”. When the General Assembly called on States not to conduct destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests in resolution 77/41 on 7 December 2022, the vote was 155 to 9 with 9 abstentions. China and Russia were among the nine against. Our piece on space weapons and the Outer Space Treaty explains how little the treaty itself prohibits.

Point 8: commercial satellites in someone else’s war

This is the clause commercial operators should read twice. It says States “should establish and improve a national regulatory regime that ensures commercial space activities are carried out in strict compliance with relevant national and international law, so as not to infringe on the legitimate rights and interests of other States and in particular, to avoid intervention in the armed conflicts and internal affairs of other States in an unlawful way.”

The first half restates Article VI of the Outer Space Treaty, which makes each State responsible for its non-governmental entities and requires “authorization and continuing supervision”. Our Outer Space Treaty explainer sets out that duty. The second half is new as a written governance principle. It treats the provision of commercial satellite services to a party in a conflict as something the operator’s home State should police.

The paper names no company or conflict. But it follows years of argument about commercial constellations supporting Ukraine, and Russia’s statement at the UN First Committee on 26 October 2022 that “quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike”, as reported by RFE/RL. My reading is that China is building a record for the argument that a State which lets its companies serve a belligerent bears responsibility for it. That cuts both ways: the same principle would apply to Chinese commercial operators, whose numbers are growing fast.

Point 3: sanctions and “domestic law”

Point 3 also says: “No State should be allowed to abuse its domestic law to erect barriers against or impose unilateral sanctions on other States’ outer space activities.” Point 9 adds a call to “oppose discriminatory policies and barriers”.

The obvious targets are United States export controls and the funding restriction usually called the Wolf Amendment. Its original version, section 1340 of Public Law 112-10 (2011), bars NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from using appropriated funds to “participate, collaborate, or coordinate bilaterally in any way with China or any Chinese-owned company” unless a later law specifically authorises it. Similar language has been carried in later appropriations acts.

As law, the point has little bite. Nothing in the space treaties restricts a State’s export controls or its choice of partners, and a position paper cannot change that. As diplomacy, it is aimed at the many developing countries that buy both American and Chinese space services and dislike being asked to choose.

Transparency, traffic and the UN’s role

Point 7 encourages States to “provide necessary notification of space launches, collision alerts, and reentry of space objects including space debris, and earnestly fulfill their international obligation regarding space objects registration.” Point 9 calls for coordination “in priority areas such as space traffic and debris mitigation”. These are the most practical lines in the paper. They match what operators have been asking for, and they give other governments a text to quote back at Beijing. Our explainers on the Registration Convention and on space traffic management show how thin the current obligations are.

Point 10 says the United Nations should be “the main channel of global governance in outer space” and asks States to “avoid any discriminatory and exclusive arrangement”. The paper does not mention the Artemis Accords, but it is hard to read that sentence any other way. The Accords keep growing: NASA’s Artemis Accords page records that Vietnam became the 78th signatory on 28 October 2026. Our Artemis Accords explainer covers what signatories commit to.

What the paper does not say

There is no mention of the Moon, of space resources or of lunar bases, which is notable given that China is building the International Lunar Research Station with partners. There is nothing on liability, insurance or licensing standards for operators. And there is no commitment on anti-satellite testing. Point 4 does support “on-orbit servicing, deep space exploration and near-Earth asteroid defense”, and broad participation in space activity by companies, universities and others “under State supervision”.

What I would watch

The first is the UN calendar. China will cite the paper in the General Assembly’s First Committee, in the UN’s work on preventing an arms race in outer space and in the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. Watch whether its language on commercial activity in armed conflict starts to appear in draft resolutions.

The second is point 8 in practice. If China wants its principle to carry weight, other States will ask how China supervises its own commercial operators, including their data sharing and their customers abroad.

The third is point 7. Launch notifications, collision alerts and re-entry notices are measurable. If Chinese operators start sharing more orbital data, the paper will have done something concrete. If not, it will read as rhetoric.

The fourth is the Artemis count. Each new signatory is a vote in the argument point 10 is making, and the gap between the two camps is now visible in every lunar policy debate.