A. Space being used to support ruling party legitimacy

Link- Asteroid Mining

China can use this as a weapon, because it has no incentive to rein in IP theft. After all, the national government sponsors much of it, in the form of mandating that international companies must enter in joint ventures with Chinese companies. These Chinese companies then ‘acquire’ the technology of their more advanced partners, and copy it, without regard for IP laws or otherwise. This is why the semiconductor industry will only send machines four generations out of date to the mainland.

Thus, the current sticky situation. China produces 95% of most rare earth metals. The U.S. and Canada are beginning to ramp up production again, but that means re-opening or discovering mines either in bitterly cold climates (Canada’s Northwest Territories), or in areas difficult to access (certain rare earth metals are primarily found with radioactive counterparts).

Lest you think these metals are unimportant, here is a brief list of items where they can be found: batteries, laptops, wind turbines, hybrid cars, circuitry, and many other aspects involving chemistry and electronics. So they’re highly desired from all across the industrial spectrum. This, combined with their scarcity and the uncertain supply from China, has resulted in prices soaring as demand has outstripped production.
Asteroid mining kills China’s dominance in the resource industry

Lamb 10 (Robert, senior fellow and deputy director of the Program on Crisis, Conflict, and Cooperation (C3) at CSIS, researching governance and development amid conflict, “THE ETHICS OF PLANETARY EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION” http://news.discovery.com/space/the-ethics-of-planetary-exploration-and-colonization.html)

Can you put a price tag on an asteroid? Sure you can. We know of roughly 750 S-class asteroids with a diameter of at least 1 kilometer. Many of these pass as near to the Earth as our own moon -- close enough to reach via spacecraft. As a typical asteroid is 10 percent metal, Brother Consolmango estimates that such an asteroid would contain 1 billion metric tons of iron. That's as much as we mine out of the globe every year, a supply worth trillions and trillions of dollars. Subtract the tens of billions it would cost to exploit such a rock, and you still have a serious profit on your hands.

But is this ethical? Brother Consolmango asked us to ponder whether such an asteroid harvest would drastically disrupt the economies of resource-exporting nations. What would happen to most of Africa? What would it do to the cost of iron ore? And what about refining and manufacturing? If we spend the money to harvest iron in space, why not outsource the other related processes as well? Imagine a future in which solar-powered robots toil in lunar or orbital factories.

"On the one hand, it's great," Brother Consolmango said. "You've now taken all of this dirty industry off the surface of the Earth. On the other hand, you've put a whole lot of people out of work. If you've got a robot doing the mining, why not another robot doing the manufacturing? And now you've just put all of China out of work. What are the ethical implications of this kind of major shift?"

Brother Consolmango also stressed that we have the technology to begin such a shift today; we'd just need the economic and political will to do it. Will our priorities change as Earth-bound resources become more and more scarce?  

Link- Dominance ADV

As addressed in a Chinese proposal to hold talks on a proposed agreement to prevent an arms race in outer space (PAROS) at the CD in 2002, Beijing argues that “outer space is the common heritage of mankind and plays an ever-increasing role in its future development.” In its 2004 defense White Paper, Beijing further emphasized that “ China hopes that the international community would take action as soon as possible to conclude an international legal instrument on preventing the weaponization of and arms race in outer space through negotiations, to ensure the peaceful use of outer space.”[16]

China is particularly concerned that space weaponization could limit its civilian and commercial space activities and negatively affect its economic development. Today, China has various operational civilian satellites in space, a family of launchers, a modern space-launch complex, and a growing list of customers in the international satellite-launch market.[17] Since launching its first satellite in 1970, China has made steady progress both in launch vehicle design and in other areas of space technology development for civilian and commercial purposes. China has developed manned spacecraft and a high-reliability launching vehicle. Between November 1999 and December 2002, China launched four unmanned experimental Shenzhou (Magic Ship) spacecraft. In October 2003, China successfully launched the Shenzhou-5 manned spaceship and, in October 2005, the Shenzhou-6 manned spaceship. China is now planning to explore the moon with unmanned spacecraft. The U.S. pursuit of space control would threaten China’s civilian and commercial space activities and perhaps even deny China access to space.
China perceives US Space dominance as an attempt to weaponize

Zhang 06 (Hui, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom, "Space Weaponization and Space Security: A Chinese Perspective"

Journal Article, China Security, volume 2, issue 1, pages 24-36)

Chinese officials have expressed a growing concern that U.S. missile defense and “space control” plans, particularly the development of space weapons, will stimulate a costly and destabilizing arms race. In April of 2002, Vice For- eign Minister Qiao Zonghuai summarized the official Chinese view of U.S. plans:

Considerable progress has been made in outer space-related weapons research and military technology. It will not take long before drawings of space weapons and weapon systems [are] turned into lethal combat instruments in outer space. Meanwhile, military doctrines and [con- cepts] such as “control of space” and “ensuring space superiority” have been unveiled successively, and space operation [command] headquar- ters and combatant troops are in the making. If we should remain in- different to the above-mentioned developments, an arms race would very likely emerge in outer space in the foreseeable future. Outer space would eventually become the fourth battlefield besides land, sea and air. If such a scenario should become reality it would be virtually im- possible for mankind to continue their anticipated exploration, devel- opment and utilization of outer space, and all economic, cultural and social activities in connection with the utilization of outer space would be severely interrupted.1

Although those in the Chinese scientific community have more nuanced perceptions than many officials, particularly regarding the feasibility and ulti- mate result of U.S. space plans, they share in the widespread concern over U.S. ambitions. The prevailing view in China is that U.S. space weaponiza- tion plans will have disastrous consequences for international security and the peaceful use of outer space.

This strategy of space dominance, however, generates the classic security dilemma between the U.S. and other countries. Although the U.S. may be motivated by defensive purposes, such as shielding the American population from nuclear weapons and other threats, other countries have to assume the worst in an anarchic world. As observed by Joan Johnson-Freese, “I would argue that the rest of the world accepts U.S. space supremacy. What the Bush Administration claims is space dominance, and that’s what the rest of the world won’t accept.”17

Chinese strategists certainly perceive the U.S. quest for space dominance as damaging to China’s national security; whoever controls space will have the edge in winning the next war. Indeed, Chinese military and civilian strategists argue that the U.S. search for “absolute security” jeopardizes other countries’ security. It is widely reported in Chinese military literature that the U.S. has already developed and is in fact implementing a master plan for military dominance in space. The challenge for China is to prevent the U.S. from jumping too far ahead. As observed by a major study organized by the General Staff of the PLA, “In recent decades the U.S. has been consistently pursuing dominance in space in order to become its overlord.”18 The study also points out that the U.S. is the first country to develop a full set of doctrines for space militarization and dominance:
China perceives US space program as an attempt for total dominance and will respond to it

Zhang 11 (Hui, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom, University of California Press, “The Security Dilemma in the U.S.-China Military Space Relationship

The Prospects for Arms Control,” http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1525/AS.2011.51.2.311.pdf?acceptTC=true)

Although many U.S. experts are correct in emphasizing the importance of space war in China’s asymmetric strategy to counter U.S. conventional ad- vantages, this article suggests that China’s military space agenda is also driven by the security dilemma between the two countries. China is pursuing mili- tary capabilities in space to counter perceived national security threats posed by the U.S. quest for space dominance and missile defense that could neu- tralize China’s nuclear deterrence.

In both cases, Chinese security experts believe that the U.S. seeks “abso- lute security” in order to maximize protection for the American population from external threats.9 This means that China at least recognizes the defen- sive motivations behind the U.S. quest for space dominance and missile defense. However, with the chaotic nature of international relations, one country’s efforts to maximize its security could degrade the security of others by changing the balance of power. Inevitably, the U.S. quest for “absolute security” evokes countermeasures from other countries. As Kenneth Waltz observes, when a great power seeks superiority, others will respond in kind, since “maintaining status quo is the minimum goal of any great power.”10

According to Robert Jervis, “The heart of the security dilemma argument is that an increase in one state’s security can make others less secure, not because of misperceptions or imagined hostility, but because of the anarchic context of international relations.” In this context, “Even if they can be cer- tain that the current intentions of other states are benign, they can neither neglect the possibility that the others will become aggressive in the future nor credibly guarantee that they themselves will remain peaceful.”11 Inevita- bly, when one state seeks to expand its military capability, others have to take similar measures.