China’s steady accumulation of lunar capability has shifted the conversation about the Moon from scientific prestige to strategic competition. What began as a sequence of high profile robotic milestones is now becoming a deliberate campaign to master the technologies and legal narratives needed to convert lunar material into enduring power on Earth and in space. The implications are geopolitical, economic, and military, and will shape the next two decades of high ground competition.
Technically, China’s lunar program has closed gaps rapidly. The Chang’e series has moved from demonstration landings to far side sample return, a feat completed successfully in 2024. That mission was not just a laboratory exercise. It validated long duration operations in demanding thermal and communication environments and sustained robotic rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit. Those capabilities are prerequisites for any extended presence, whether scientific, commercial, or strategic.
Politically, Beijing has been explicit about sequencing exploration toward bases and infrastructure. CNSA public statements and mission roadmaps signal that Chang’e-7 will focus on south polar survey tasks and that Chang’e-8 will validate in-situ resource utilization experiments in the coming half decade. Those experiments are the practical bridge between scientific samples and an extractive economy on the Moon. If successful, ISRU will reduce the cost of sustained operations by turning local water ice and regolith into fuel, life support, shielding, and building materials. That, in turn, lowers the barrier for a permanent presence that can be defended and leveraged.
Beijing’s ambitions are not purely domestic. China and Russia continue to co-design an International Lunar Research Station. High level Russian statements and public reporting have floated cooperative projects that include plans for nuclear power systems on the lunar surface as early as the 2030s. A reliable, high density power source on the Moon changes the strategic calculus. It enables year round operations near the poles and gives any power-operator substantial leverage over timing and scale of activity there. That kind of infrastructure is dual use. It is indispensable for science and settlement, and it is also a force multiplier for whatever actor controls it.
The legal and normative environment is evolving alongside hardware. The United States and its Artemis Accords partners have pushed a doctrine that treats extraction of space resources as compatible with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty so long as activities are peaceful, transparent, and sustainable. That interpretation supports national legislation and commercial contracts that grant practical rights to entities that recover and use space resources. It is not, however, a universally accepted reading. China, Russia, and several other states prefer a more multilateral regime or a commons framing for space resources. Those competing legal narratives will matter because they shape incentives for unilateral moves, coalition building, and the tolerance states will have for exclusionary practices on the lunar surface.
Military thinkers and defence planners have begun to translate lunar infrastructure into strategic effect. U.S. and allied officials publicly warn that adversaries can exploit civilian programs to develop capabilities that threaten space systems on which modern militaries depend. The concern is not abstract. Space domain operations already include close approaches, inspection maneuvers, electronic interference, and anti-satellite demonstrations. As actors place heavier and more valuable infrastructure on or near the Moon, competition for access, denial, and resilience will migrate outward from low Earth orbit. The combination of sensing, rendezvous, power systems, and propellant manufacture becomes a suite of capabilities that could support offensive or protective military options.
We are therefore at a crossroads. The megaproject view of lunar development suggests a pathway to decarbonized industry, deep scientific discovery, and a resilient off Earth economy. The geopolitical view warns of a new front in great power competition where access to resources and infrastructure confers asymmetric advantage. Both are true. The near term policy question is how states and coalitions choose to reduce the second outcome without foreclosing the first.
Practical policy steps are available but underused. First, transparency and technical confidence building must be accelerated through multilateral testbeds and common data sharing for ISRU demonstrations. Second, norms for site protection should be anchored in joint, verifiable processes that make “safety zones” function as cooperative air traffic control rather than exclusivity claims. Third, states should expand cooperative procurement and insurance structures so that commercial lunar ventures internalize the international costs of coercive behaviour. Finally, arms control must be extended into cislunar space in a manner that treats infrastructure as dual use and reduces incentives for first mover denial strategies. None of these steps are simple, but they are more feasible and more urgent than negotiating an entirely new treaty from scratch.
Private sector actors will matter more than many governments admit. Companies that can extract, process, and resell propellant or water will be the de facto gatekeepers of mobility in cislunar space. States that fail to influence commercial practices risk seeing regulation and standards set by private market leaders whose priorities are profit and survivability rather than collective security.
China will not be alone in pursuing lunar resources. The United States, European partners, Japan, India, and a growing list of smaller spacefaring nations have plans and legal frameworks aimed at enabling commercial activity. What makes the current juncture hazardous is the overlap of capability, contestation over legal norms, and the emergence of durable infrastructure that is both economically valuable and militarily relevant. The longer deliberations over norms and arms control are delayed, the more locked in the strategic landscape will become. That lock in will make crisis management in space harder and more dangerous.
The Moon will not be a theatre of instant kinetic conflict. It will be a slow contest over nodes, fuel, and influence, punctuated by diplomatic and proxy confrontations on and off the surface. The right policy response is recognition that the choices made now about governance, transparency, and cooperation will determine whether the cislunar domain becomes a shared platform for collective progress or the next contested high ground where escalation is routinized. The United States and its partners need a strategy that integrates civil, commercial, and defence instruments to shape incentives and lower the probability that resource competition turns into confrontation.