On Five Competitive Initiatives for Space Security Governance

The issues of space security are more and more serious, and thus its governance is urgent. In order to achieve the goals of space security, international community proposed five competitive initiatives(which are PPWT by China and Russia, and CoC by EU, and ICoC by USA, and LTSSA by Scientific and Technical Subcommittee, COPUOS, and TCBMs in space by GGE). There is the common point of dealing with space security issues, but there are some major divergences in these initiatives. USA opposed the hard laws, but approved of soft laws, which does not restrict its space developments. China and Russia maintained hard laws, and needed the soft laws to replenish them. The EU agreed to soft laws, but was not opposed to hard laws with verification mechanism. Major space actors have different cognitions and positions on these initiatives. There is still a long way to reach the commons on space security governance.