The US is concerned about China’s expanding ability to disrupt the most sensitive US military and intelligence satellites, as Beijing pursues its expanded ambitions in space, according to multiple sources in the US government and outside space experts.
A classified US intelligence assessment completed late last year analyzed China’s increasing activities in space and mapped out the growing vulnerability of US satellites that provide secure military communications, warn about enemy missile launches and provide precise targeting coordinates, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
“It was a very credible and sobering assessment that is now provoking a lot of activities in different quarters,” said one former government official who is familiar with US national security satellite programs.
The intelligence report raised red flags about Beijing’s ability to disrupt satellites in higher orbits, which could put the most sensitive US spacecraft at risk, according to the sources. China has already conducted several anti-satellite tests at lower orbital levels in recent years.
Given the heightened concerns, Washington is keeping a watchful eye on Chinese activities that could be used to disrupt US satellites. It is also urging Beijing to avoid a repeat of its January 2007 test that created an enormous amount of “space junk,” one senior defense official said.
Details of the latest Chinese moves that have raised US concerns remain classified.
US officials charge that China’s anti-satellite activities are part of a major military modernization that has seen Beijing test two new stealth fighters, step up cyber attacks on foreign computer networks and launch more commercial and military satellites last year than the US.
China still lags behind the US in most military fields.
“What we’re seeing is a heightened sense in the United States that China is a potential threat and that it has the technology to be a threat if it wishes to,” said Jonathan McDowell, with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
“As China becomes a space superpower, and given that it does have a significant military component to its space program, it is inevitable that the US will be concerned about threats to its most valued satellite systems, whether or not China actually intends to deploy such aggressive systems,” he said.
Six years ago, on Jan. 11, 2007, China destroyed one of its own defunct weather satellites in low-earth orbit, which created over 10,000 pieces of debris that pose a threat to other spacecraft. A less-destructive test followed on Jan. 11, 2010.
Space experts and US officials say they expect China to continue testing anti-satellite technologies, although they doubt it would repeat the 2007 test, given the massive international outcry it triggered.
Gregory Kulacki, a respected researcher with the Union of Concerned Scientists, reported earlier this month on the group’s Web site that there was “a strong possibility” of a new anti-satellite test by China within the next few weeks.
He said Chinese sources had told him in November last year that an announcement about an upcoming anti-satellite test had been circulated within the Chinese government, and a high-ranking US defense official confirmed last month that Washington was “very concerned” about an imminent Chinese anti-satellite test.
The Pentagon said it was aware of reports predicting another test, but declined comment on what it called “intelligence matters.”
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
RSS