SLOWLY BUT STEADILY: U.S. law bars NASA from working with China's space industry but academics and nongovernmental organizations from the erstwhile competitors are steadily increasing their engagement. And they are eying stepping it up a notch this fall, planning focused, elevated, and difficult discussions between space industry stakeholders in both countries via so-called "Track II" back channel diplomacy, a pair of the American organizers tells us. The informal contacts have been taking place since April 2019 in the form of three workshops, a hybrid of in-person and online, to discuss broad topics of common interest and engage in Q&A. The sessions have also included government observers from the U.S. embassy in Beijing. But the two sides are now eyeing this fall for a more robust engagement, according to Ian Christensen, director of private sector programs at the Secure World Foundation, and Rob Ronci, executive director of the Caelus Foundation , who have been working with the Chinese Society of Astronautics. "Everything up until now has been a pretty rapid but steady building up of the relationship and how the process works," said Christensen. "I'd say it's moving to more systematic discussion. We have a plan in with our Chinese partners to hold small group working conversations this fall, focused on issues that arose in prior workshops, of interest to both US and Chinese stakeholders.'" As for the U.S. government side, he said that State Department officials have been briefed on the developments, and that "they are aware of our intent to move in that direction." The State Department did not respond to a request to comment. What will be different about the next phase? The next phase will more closely resemble Track II diplomacy, which has been relied on heavily in the past as a first step in opening up dialogue between adversaries and "brings together unofficial representatives on both sides, with no government participation," according to a recent primer from the U.S. Institute of Peace. "They are not government-to-government meetings. What they offer is a private, open environment for individuals to build trust, hold conversations that their official counterparts sometimes cannot or will not, and discuss solutions." So far, the workshops have included broad discussions and refrained from any technical discussions to avoid running afoul of strict export rules. In one example, both sides delivered presentations on space tourism. "We've had academic participation, we've had NGO participation , and we've had several industry speakers as well," said Christensen. "We've had U.S government observers; no formal U.S. government presenters. Also we have semi-regularly briefed government officials here in the U.S. both in State in D.C. as well as within other parts of the executive branch." "As for the Chinese side, "they have brought speakers, including from the China National Space Administration and major aerospace state-owned enterprises. We've also had participation from some of China's so-called private space companies." Any points of debate? There were some interesting, not really heated, but debating points like our two sides were directly engaging," Ronci related. "There was a direct rebuttal about the suggestion that our form of commercial space is different from theirs. Our Chinese counterparts were like 'no we have the same thing and ours works fine." You can read up on the April 2019 session held in Changsha, China, the September 2020 session, and the April 2021 interactive discussion. More details coming: "Also we are working on a detailed report to try to make it as transparent and out there as possible," said Ronci. "We are in the process of getting the information, interviewing some of our people who participated, and gathering insights." In the meantime, the foundations are offering briefings on this activity for those who don't want to wait for the report. | 
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