A recently retired U.S. Air Force general has said that China is building a 'navy in space' and warned that America must act quickly to avoid losing in a new space race.

Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast, who retired from the Air Force in September, made the remarks in a speech last month at Hillsdale College in Michigan.

'They are building a navy in space, with the equivalent of battleships and destroyers, that will be able to maneuver and kill and communicate with dominance, and we are not,' Kwast said of China.

According to Kwast, China is developing 'nuclear thermal power propulsion systems' for space flight, technology that he says the U.S. is capable of developing but is not pursuing.

'The stuff they're building is not better than what we could build,' Kwast added, saying that the U.S. needs to act quickly before China asserts dominance in space.

Lieutenant General Steven L. Kwast, who retired from the Air Force in September, made the remarks in a speech (above) last month at Hillsdale College in Michigan

In his speech, Kwast praised President Donald Trump for the creation of a U.S. Space Force and said that the new military branch needs to be urgently developed to counter China's advances in space warfare.

What are China's goals in space? The China National Space Administration stated that their long-term goals are: Improve their standing in the world of space science

Establish a crewed space station

Crewed missions to the moon

Establish a crewed lunar base

Robotic mission to Mars

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'Space is the navy for the 21st-century economy, a networked economy that will dominate any linear terrestrial economy in the four engines of growth and dominance that change world power: transportation, information, energy, and manufacturing,' said Kwast.

'Whoever gets to the new market sets the values for that market. And we could either have the market with the values of our Constitution ... or we could have the values we see manifest in China.'

Kwast argued that America is resting on the laurels of its post-WWII geopolitical success, and that it is necessary to think in terms of new paradigms.

'As a historian, reflecting on the fact that throughout the history of mankind… technology has always changed world power. But the story of rejecting the new and holding and clinging to the paradigms of the past is why no civilization has ever lasted forever, and values are trumped by other values when another civilization figures out a way of finding a competitive advantage,' he said.

A Long March-3B rocket carrying the ChinaSat 6C satellite blasts off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on March 10, 2019 in Xichang, Sichuan Province of China

'The nature of power, you either have it and your values rule or you do not have it and you must submit. We see that play out again and again in history and it's playing out now,' he said.

Kwast said that once China established itself as a military power in space, it would throw up 'roadblocks' to prevent America from developing its own space military force.

'Once you get the high ground, that strategic high ground, it's curtains for anybody trying to get to that high ground behind them,' he said.

China in January successfully landed a rover on the far side of the moon, and has stated its goal to establish a crewed lunar base.

The Chinese space agency has openly stated that its ultimate goal is to exploit the moon's vast resources for industrial development.

In his speech, Kwast made one odd claim about transportation technology that is in development to move people anywhere on earth in less than an hour.

View of the rover Yutu-2 (Jade Rabbit-2) taken by the lander of the Chang'e-4 probe on January 11, 2019 on the moon. The mission was the first-ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon

'The technology is on the engineering benches today,' he said. 'This technology can be built today with technology that is not developmental to deliver any human being from any place on planet Earth to any other place in less than an hour.'

This was apparently a reference to Elon Musk's proposals to use his Space X 'Starship' rocket to enable movement between any cities on earth in less than an hour, which Kwast mentioned elsewhere in his speech.

Musk made the proposal in 2017, but was met with skepticism that the rocket transportation would be massively expensive, and that the G-forces involved in ballistic launch and reentry would almost certainly be lethal to humans.

Kwast has long been outspoken on space issues, and his supporters have said that he was 'prematurely relieved from his command' for stirring the pot.

Prior to his retirement in September, many of his supporters had been lobbying for him to assume command of the new U.S. Space Force.