NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
China’s military is expanding an array of space warfare weapons that pose a major threat to American satellites and the military operations they support, a senior Space Force general said Wednesday.
Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of the Colorado-based Space Command, said the space weapons deployed by China and Russia are “in some ways getting harder to fight.”
“We operate in a domain in which our opponents have built a suite of counterspace capabilities to hold our satellites at risk in all orbital regimes,” Gen. Whiting told the Space & Missile Defense Symposium in Alabama.
The four-star general singled out the Chinese Communist Party for what he called its “breathtaking pace of space and counterspace” weapons development.
Asked the most significant issue he faces as a commander, Gen. Whiting said: “I think the ongoing greatest challenge is just the speed at which China is moving to rapidly improve their space capabilities and the threat that that potentially poses.”
People’s Liberation Army space weapons now include a “robust suite” of arms and capabilities that can blind and deafen U.S. military forces by disrupting and destroying satellites, he said.
“These include direct descent [anti-satellite] missiles, ground-based lasers, jammers and maneuverable co-orbital ASATs and dual-use satellites like the SJ-21,” he said.
Space Force leaders have warned that China’s Shijian-21 and similar Shiyan maneuvering robot satellites use extension arms that can clear debris and move satellites but also can be weaponized for covert space warfare.
In 2025, Gen. Michael Guetlein, then-Space Force vice chief of space operations, said Chinese SJ satellites were observed that year maneuvering around each other in synchronicity and control in what he called orbital “dogfighting” – a process that can be used to attack and destroy satellites.
Gen. Whiting said China’s space weapons can target vital U.S. military satellites used for both warning and defense missions.
The Chinese military is “in no uncertain terms expanding military options for sustained offensive operations against the satellites we rely on to defend the homeland and project power,” he said.
“These developments intend to degrade our current space superiority and would potentially give China a maneuver and logistics advantage in space, something we would never accept on the land, at sea or in the air,” Gen. Whitting said.
Counterspace weapons are one of four areas where Beijing is moving “breathtakingly fast,” he said.
The threats are not future possibilities seen in war games and simulations but are real now, Gen. Whiting said. “They exist today and we have to face them.”
China also has built a space architecture that allows the PLA army, navy, and air rocket force to increase the range, power and precision of attacks by leveraging space systems, he said.
A third tool is the PLA’s development of a space-based targeting system to hold American forces at risk through advanced command and control and related technology.
The system “can find, fix, track, target and then provide that data back to Chinese over-the-horizon fires to hold at risk our Navy, our Air Force, our Army, our Marine Corps, and that is something now we collectively have to face,” Gen. Whiting said.
A fourth element of growing Chinese military space power is a rapidly built, orbiting maneuver and sustainment capability, he said.
“Last year we saw them demonstrate refueling of two satellites on orbit, possibly some kind of servicing as well,” he said.
The Space Force is working to make sure China does not have what he termed the “maneuver advantage” over the U.S military in space.
The U.S. military is “the better team” in space than the Chinese because of broad international allies and cooperation and U.S. industry and academic support.
China caught illegally seeking military satellite gear
A Chinese national pleaded guilty on Monday to illegally attempting to buy and export to China restricted U.S. military equipment used for communicating with satellites.
The case highlights Beijing’s preparations for targeting American satellites in a future conflict and bolstering its military communications.
Dingwei Chen, 29, pleaded guilty in federal court in Utah to violating the Arms Export Control Act for trying to obtain military-grade satellite modems and radios from three U.S. defense contractors.
“Chen tried to divert sensitive U.S. military technologies to the People’s Republic of China, technologies the PRC could have used against us in the future,” said John A. Eisenberg, assistant attorney general for national security.
Chen worked covertly with several others in attempting to buy and smuggle the satellite communications modems made by L3Harris, Viasat and Comtech, court documents state.
The 10 satellite modems were described in court papers as four L3Harris MPM-2000 and MPM-3000 satellite modems, four Viasat CBM-400 modems and two Comtech SLM-5650B modems.
L3Harris described its modems in a fact sheet as automated, multi-media satellite communications networking technology used in U.S. Army tactical and mobile warfighting systems.
Viasat said its modems provide powerful flexibility and connectivity and “sets the standard for the future of the battlefield.”
Comtech stated online that its modems are advanced modems for communicating with satellites in medium-earth orbit and geostationary orbit and used by both the U.S. military and federal government.
According to court documents, a Chinese company that Chen worked for sought to buy the modems in April 2025 but investigators were tipped off to the sale.
An undercover Homeland Security agent then contacted Chen, who revealed to the agent plans to smuggle the modems first through Mexico and later through Saipan, in the U.S. Pacific territory of the Northern Mariana Islands located about 120 miles north of Guam.
The modems are restricted for export and require an export license that current policy denies for sale to China.
A recorded phone conversation with Chen quoted him as telling the agent, “We have a very, you know, perfect way to make sure this thing cannot be, uh, found out by the police or someone else.”
In addition to the 10 modems, a list obtained by investigators revealed plans by the Chinese company to smuggle other military modems, military radios, and an L3Harris electronic countermeasures system used on B-1 bombers.
Defense analysts say the modems would have provided China’s military with two potential benefits. First, the modems could be copied by People’s Liberation Army technicians to boost its military communications.
The modems also would provide valuable electronic intelligence on how the U.S. military communicates with satellites – vital know-how useful for the PLA in conducting space warfare, specifically, cyberattacks to block U.S. military ground-to-satellite links.
Rick Fisher, an expert on the Chinese military, the case is the latest example of large-scale Chinese espionage targeting U.S. military technology with the goal of seeking strategic superiority over the United States.
“China wants top-of-the-line U.S. satellite communications modems because they provide a direct means to understanding the heart of U.S. military power: The ability to securely transmit the information and orders that enable U.S. military forces to destroy targets,” Mr. Fisher said.
“For the PLA, obtaining U.S. Boeing B-1A bomber electronic countermeasures (ECM) would be a fantastic prize, enabling the PLA to understand how to fox or jam B-1 bomber ECMs and perhaps other U.S. ECMs to ensure that PLA missiles destroy U.S. platforms,” he said.
Chen was arrested in Saipan in October and extradited to Salt Lake City, where the case was handled.
In a plea statement, Chen said he knowingly tried to export the modems to China without obtaining an export license or permission from the State Department director of defense trade controls.
Senate wants new spy unit for Taiwan war warning
Amid growing U.S.-China tensions over Taiwan, Senate intelligence oversight legislators want U.S. intelligence agencies to set up a special unit to monitor warning signs of a Chinese assault on the self-rule island.
A section of the fiscal 2027 intelligence authorization bill would require Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton, who was sworn into office on Aug. 3, and Bradley Hansell, undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security, to create the new intelligence group.
The bill language calls for the new China-Taiwan Strategic Warning Task Force to be set up within two months of passage of the annual intelligence law.
The goal of the task force will be to “to lead the efforts of the intelligence community with respect to providing indications and warning of any military aggression by the People’s Republic of China against Taiwan.”
Inclusion of the new spy unit in the bill is an indication U.S. intelligence agencies may not be conducting adequate intelligence gathering and analysis on a potential Taiwan conflict.
Among the roles of the new task force would be synchronizing intelligence from 18 agencies on the threat of a Chinese attack and directing collection targets.
Analysis of potential attacks on Taiwan also will be better organized by the new task force, along with applying new information technology solutions to improve information sharing on cross-strait attack threats.
The new warning unit comes as China’s President Xi Jinping has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to build up forces to be ready for using military forces to annex Taiwan, which Beijing insists is its territory.
Over the past several years, the PLA has been engaged in what military intelligence officials call a major pressure campaign using large-scale military operations around Taiwan, aggressive influence operations and targeted cyberattacks in a bid to force Taiwan to capitulate.
Leaked intelligence documents posted online by Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira in 2023 revealed that U.S. intelligence officials worried the United States would be unable to spot the early warning signs of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
The issue was identified in one assessment prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in early 2023 that referred to heightened aggression by the PLA that began after the 2022 visit to Taiwan by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The assessment stated that PLA modernization, stepped-up operational activity and the use of civilian ferries during military exercises near Taiwan were “eroding” U.S. intelligence agencies’ efforts to detect unusual activity or preparation for “an attack on Taiwan.”
The intense military activity has made it difficult to distinguish normal military activity from what may be escalatory.
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