No country owns the Moon. The powers that shape the rules of space may find that they do not need to. On October 23, China published its position paper on space governance as a bid for influence over those rules. India had already signed the US-led Artemis Accords in June 2023. New Delhi must now weigh Beijing’s proposals against its existing commitments, while preserving choices it may need as its capabilities grow.
Much of the legal framework governing space was written decades ago. Commercial ventures and new technologies are now testing how those rules apply to activities at a scale their authors could barely have imagined. Whether this leads to new agreements or disputes over existing ones, India should prepare for another round of diplomatic jostling.
China wants the United Nations to remain the main forum for writing the rules of space. Its proposals cover commercial operators, information sharing and arms control. The paper has political weight: Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi announced it among eight practical actions under Beijing’s wider governance agenda. Developing countries are promised a larger say. Part of President Xi Jinping’s Global Governance Initiative, it seeks to turn their frustration with existing arrangements into support for China’s claim to global leadership.
Many countries depend on satellites they do not own and services whose operating conditions they had little role in shaping. Their fear is that powerful governments and companies will settle the rules among themselves. India’s experience of using space technology for development gives it common ground with countries seeking affordable, reliable access to these services.
China’s call to stop commercial space companies from unlawfully intervening in conflicts appears aimed partly at services such as Starlink in Ukraine. When a private satellite network becomes vital to a military campaign, responsibility cannot simply stop at the company’s registered address. But who decides when support becomes unlawful, and would China accept the same rule for its own firms?
China’s destruction of a satellite in 2007 left thousands of persistent debris fragments in orbit. India has demonstrated an anti-satellite capability too. Both have reason to prevent an arms race. Beijing’s paper offers principles of restraint, but leaves specific obligations and verification arrangements to future negotiations.
Under the Artemis Accords, India has endorsed principles promoted by the US for civil space exploration. These include the view that extracting lunar resources does not in itself amount to claiming national ownership of territory. The Accords also envisage temporary safety zones, where operators coordinate their activities to avoid harmful interference. These confer no territorial ownership. How large they become, and how they are used, will nevertheless matter to countries arriving later.
The Accords do not bar cooperation with China. They are legally non-binding political commitments, although endorsing contradictory principles elsewhere could carry a diplomatic cost. Once a mission is designed around a partner’s equipment and data systems, changing partners can mean redesigning the mission. Separate technology restrictions and project contracts may narrow the choices further. Freedom may remain on paper even as the cost of using it rises.
Access to advanced technology and shared infrastructure can also make missions that India could not undertake alone possible. Refusing such opportunities in the name of independence could leave it with fewer capabilities and fewer choices. Negotiators should ask what Indian teams will learn to design, maintain and operate themselves, and which essential functions will continue to depend on foreign assistance.
At the BRICS summit in New Delhi in September 2026, India joined a declaration supporting negotiations on space arms control. It also recognised the Russian and Chinese draft treaty as an important step towards preventing an arms race. Joining the Artemis Accords did not prevent India from taking that position. That support does not mean India must accept every treaty provision that Russia or China favours.
India’s serious political differences and strategic rivalry with China limit how far such cooperation can go. Exchanging collision warnings requires a different level of trust from sharing sensitive infrastructure or relying on Chinese systems for an essential service. India must consider whether deeper cooperation would allow Beijing to interrupt a vital service or exert pressure.
The Indian government’s space reforms have opened more activities to private companies and eased foreign investment rules. ISRO, diplomats, defence planners and commercial operators need to identify where India is vulnerable. Which satellite services could be interrupted by a foreign decision? How quickly could essential suppliers be replaced? The answers should inform the agreements India signs and the domestic capabilities it funds.
India need not wait for negotiations to offer something useful. It could expand cooperation with countries that need satellite data to anticipate floods, monitor crops and assess disaster damage, while training local teams to use it. Such work would also show India which problems any future rules should address. Those relationships would be worth building whether or not Beijing’s UN proposals lead to substantive negotiations.
With competition in space accelerating, India will need partners for missions it cannot yet undertake alone. It should negotiate with a clear understanding of what each partnership enables, what it restricts and what would happen if cooperation ended. The most revealing question is what India could still do on the day a partner said no.
Syed Akbaruddin served as India’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York and, currently, is dean, Kautilya School of Public Policy. The views expressed are personal
