What is the Intent of China’s National Flag on Celestial Bodies?

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) released photos on June 10th showing its Zhurong rover and the Tianwen-1 mission lander. Closer inspection of the photo shows the national flag unfurled from the Tianwen-1 mission lander. This isn’t the first time China raised its national flag on a celestial body. On December 4, 2020, the Chang’e 5 descent module raised the Chinese national flag after the sample return module departed a little over six months before the Tianwen-1 mission lander unfurled its national flag. These two prominent actions raise the question what is China’s intentions when it raises its national flag on celestial bodies, or more specifically, what does it mean?

The presence of national flags on the surface of celestial bodies began with Apollo 11 where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin implanted a U.S. national flag at Tranquility Base. This was not a planned event and raised concerns in Congress that the fixing of the U.S. flag on the surface of the Moon could be interpreted as the U.S. making a sovereign claim. This concern was well-founded considering two years prior, the U.S. signed and ratified the Outer Space Treaty, which holds at its core that no nation can make a sovereign claim of outer space, including celestial bodies.

Likely aware of the potential negative geopolitical optics, Congress enacted a provision in the NASA Authorization Act of 1970 to address the activity of planting the U.S. flag on the Moon by government actors. Section 8 of the NASA Authorization Act of 1970 stipulates:

“The flag of the United States, and no other flag, shall be implanted or otherwise placed on the surface of the moon, or on the surface of any planet, by the members of the crew of any spacecraft making a lunar or planetary landing as a part of a mission under the Apollo program or as a part of a mission under any subsequent program, the funds for which are provided entirely by the Government of the United States. This act is intended as a symbolic gesture of national pride in achievement and is not to be construed as a declaration of national appropriation by claim of sovereignty.”

The NASA Authorization Act of 1970, including Section 8, was enacted one day before Pete Conrad and Alan Bean landed on the Moon and performed a similar act of planting the U.S. national flag on the Moon. The act of Congress legislating the intent of implanting the flag on the Moon into federal law clarified the meaning of the act, supported the non-sovereignty/non-appropriation provisions of the Outer Space Treaty and assured the international community the Apollo program was not a precursor to U.S. conquest of outer space, including the celestial bodies.

           This raises the question of China’s intent for deploying its national flag on the Moon and now on Mars. China’s positioning of its national flag on the Moon and Mars was not done by humans, but in this age of space exploration robotic craft are becoming surrogates for national presence. In the case of China, beyond physical presence its spacecraft and outer space activities are being interlaced around its culture and mythology with its spacecraft bearing the names of mythical figures with cultural significance. This suggests China is weaving a careful narrative of history and mythology to use customary international law to side-step the Outer Space Treaty’s  non-sovereignty/non-appropriation  principles and integrate the concept of space resources to gradually establish claims of prior occupation on celestial bodies. This is not out of the question considering claims in non-sovereign terrestrial domains, including in the “nine-dash line” region of the South China Sea, are based on historical claims and prior occupation and use customary international law to alter the law of the sea.

This approach brings into question the objective of China’s actions on the Moon and Mars. China has yet to specifically assure the international community it’s the intentions for raising its national flag on the Moon and Mars are consistent with the non-appropriation/non-sovereignty principles of the Outer Space Treaty and merely represent national pride and achievement. Still, even in light of such a proclamation, unless its actions are consistent with its edicts, China’s activities in outer space should be held suspect and concerns about appropriation not dismissed. Consequently, China’s outer space achievement on landing a spacecraft on Mars should be recognized for its technical feat, but how its actions in outer space are presented and what its true intent and underlying geopolitical goals really are should not be assumed to be benign. Rather, China’s actions ought to be scrutinized in the context of its behaviors in terrestrial domains and responded to accordingly lest the nine-dash line repeats itself in outer space.