China has sent hundreds of satellites into orbit in the last six years, making it the world’s leader
China has tripled its fleet of surveillance satellites in the last six years, according to a US general.
Space Force General Stephen Whiting discussed the threat to US strategic dominance, including space technology, in a recent talk at the Aspen Institute think tank.
“In the last six years, they’ve tripled the number of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellites they have on orbit,” Whiting said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party.
“Hundreds and hundreds of satellites purpose-built and designed to find, fix, track, target, and yes, potentially engage U.S. and allied forces across the Indo-Pacific.”
The Chinese Communist Party has made clear its ambitions to be the world leader in space technology in the near future, outlining its plans in a white paper published two years ago.
“[The CCP will] seize the opportunities presented by the expanding digital industry and the digital transformation of traditional industries, to promote the application and transfer of space technology,” the white paper states.
“A number of major space and science projects are in place to promote the leapfrog development of space science and technology, which spearheads overall technical advances.”
China has now become the world’s leader in satellite launches, pursuing new modulate rocket systems and working closely with the Russians.
China euphemistically refers to its sophisticate regime of technology theft, which includes the placement of Chinese researchers at key universities and companies in the West, as “technology transfer.”
General Whiting stated that the US was taking countermeasures to ensure its satellites are capable of responding to threats including satellite-mounted weapons.
“We’re seeing a whole host of our constellations now heading in a direction of being more disaggregated, more distributed, having built-in defense capabilities against these threats,” he said.
Another general, Jeff Kruse, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, also spoke at the Aspen Institute, and noted that China perceived the “US’s over-reliance on space” as a key weakness that would be targeted before or in the early stages of a future conflict.
“Both Russia and China view the use of space early on, even ahead of conflict, as important capabilities to deter or compel behavior,” Kruse said.
“Where we see that is just a tremendous increase in directed energy weapons, in electronic warfare, in anti-satellite capabilities.”
Kruse added that Russia and China are already testing the boundaries and capabilities of the US satellite system with reversible attacks.
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