This article
investigates whether the second Trump Administration will cooperate with China
in the space sphere through an empirical approach. The main empirical
methodology is drawn from a previous theme-based study by Holland and Burns,
which codes the themes of the US Space Policy papers into five categories:
competition with the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (the former
USSR), American prestige, international collaboration, American leadership, and
a new paradigm. The previous study spanned from the Eisenhower Administration
to the Obama Administration. The article adopts the said methodology, provides
certain critiques, and supplements the data from the first Trump administration
and Biden administration, upon which the article further predicts the
orientation of space policymaking in the second Trump administration towards
the angle of international cooperation with China on paper, but flow between
competition and cooperation in practice. In conclusion, the article proposes
that China and the US will enter into a new phase of cooperation and
competition in the new space era. The latest example of China’s Space Station
(CSS) will be taken into consideration.