Roma (AP) – Stealth submarine with custom built attack satellites armed with space chute lasers, supply chain sabotage and ion thrusters. These are just a few of the strategies Chinese scientists are developing to counter what Beijing considers a powerful threat. Elon Musk’ S Fleet of S Starlink Communications Satellite.
The Chinese government and military scientists are concerned about military conflict and the potential use of Starlink by spy enemies, and have published dozens of papers in public magazines exploring ways to hunt and destroy masked satellites.
Chinese researchers believe Starlink is a vast constellation of low-orbit satellites that offer cheap, fast, and ubiquitous connectivity even in remote areas, poses high risk to the Chinese government and its strategic interests. That fear has been driven primarily by its close ties with its US intelligence agency and defence facilities, as well as its growing global footprint.
“As the US integrates Starlink technology into military spatial assets and gains strategic advantage over its enemies, other countries are increasingly aware of Starlink as a security threat in the nuclear, space and cyber domains,” wrote a professor of Chinese National Defense Technology in a 2023 paper.
Chinese researchers aren’t just worried about Starlink. Space-based communication. Some traditional US allies also question the wisdom of handing over the core communications infrastructure and potential data to businesses run by unpredictable foreign businessmen whose loyalty is not necessarily clear.
Anxieties deepened after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 revealed the benefits of the battlefield that the Starlink satellite could convey, and it was exacerbated by the spread of Musk’s political interests.
Musk sent tens of millions of dollars into President Donald Trump’s reelection efforts, and temporarily emerged as a key adviser and government official. He is also increasingly interested in European politics as he is a musk toy with the idea of starting his own party.
Musk left the Trump administration in May, and within days his relationship with Trump was openly disrupted in a social media feud. SpaceX, the rocket launch and space-based telecom company founded by Musk and runs Starlink, is closely linked to the core functions of the US government. It has won billions of contracts to provide launch services to NASA missions and military satellites. The recovered astronaut The International Space Station will build a network of spy satellites for the National Reconnaissance Agency.
Starlink’s space advantage has sparked a global scramble to come up with viable alternatives. But its overwhelming first-mover advantage gives SpaceX close to exclusive power, further complicating the business, political and national security flows that converge on Musk and his businesses.
Starlink rules the space
Since its first launch in 2019, Starlink has now accounted for about two-thirds of all active satellites. SpaceX operates over 8,000 active satellites, and is ultimately aiming to deploy tens of thousands more.
Beijing’s trend to view Starlink as a tool for US military power has sharpened efforts to develop countermeasures. This, if deployed, could increase the risk of collateral losses to other customers as SpaceX expands its global footprint. The same satellites passing through China may continue on their paths around the globe to Europe, Ukraine, the US and other regions.
Starlink is operated in more than 140 countries and is said to have recently invaded in Vietnam, Niger, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Pakistan. June, Starlink I have obtained a license to operate it In India, we will overcome national security concerns and strong domestic communications benefits to open up a tech-savvy market of around 1.5 billion people.
On the company’s own coverage map, few zones have died beyond the North Korea, Iran and China zones.
No other countries or companies are close to catching up to StarLink. Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is aiming to become rival musk with Project Kuiper. I launched the first batch In April, we entered internet satellite orbit. So far, Amazon has only 78 satellites in orbit, with 3,232 planned, according to McDowell, and London-based Eutelstat OneWeb has 650 satellites in orbit, with just a portion of the fleet originally planned.
The European Union has spent billions of dollars developing its own satellite array, known as the IRIS2 Initiative, but it has been awfully behind. EU officials had to lobby their member states to avoid signing contracts with Starlink while they were awake and running.
“We are an ally with the United States of America, but we need to have strategic autonomy,” said Christophe Gurdler, a French member of the European Parliament who led the legislative work on IRIS2. “The risk is that we don’t hold our own destiny.”
China has been published about its ambitions to build its own version of Starlink to meet both domestic national security needs and compete with Starlink in foreign markets. In 2021, Beijing established the state-owned China Satonet Company and was tasked with starting a megaconstellation with military capabilities known as Gua Wan. According to McDowell, the company launched its first operating satellite in December and now has 13,000 planned 13,000 in orbit.
Qianfan, a Shanghai government-backed company, has launched 90 satellites out of nearly 15,000 plans. The Brazilian government announced its contract with Qianfan in November. Musk announced his contract with Qianfan after investigating X, which is investigating a Brazilian judge. Qianfan also targets customers in Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Omanzu, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, with ambitions expanding across the African continent, according to a slide announced at the Space Industry Conference last year and published by China Space Monitor.
Russian Ukrainian invasion exceeds concern
Concerns about Starlink’s hegemony were recharged by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. War was a turning point in strategic thinking about a system similar to Starlink. Ukraine used the StarLink network to promote battlefield communication and power fighters and reconnaissance drones, providing a critical ground game advantage. At the same time, access to the satellite was initially controlled by a man, Musk. Ukraine’s counterattack in Russian-occupied Crimea.
US-led sanctions on Moscow after a full-scale invasion also reduce the availability of Russian Western technology, highlighting the geopolitical risks inherent in relying on foreign actors to access critical infrastructure.
Nitin Pai, co-founder and director of Takshashira Institute, a public policy research centre based in Bangalore, India, said: “For the past 20 years, Chinese companies were very aware of the fact that it is risky to give Chinese companies a significant government contract, as Chinese companies have been operating as an accessory to the Chinese Communist Party. So it’s a risk because the Chinese Communist Party can use technology as a lever against you.
After the conflict began, almost all of the 64 papers on Starlink reviewed by the AP in the Chinese journal were published.
Assessing Starlink’s capabilities and vulnerabilities
Starlink’s ubiquitous and potential military applications have driven Beijing crazy and forced the country’s scientists to take action. In a later paper, the researchers understood that Beijing might learn from the company of Mask, as they work to develop similar satellite systems, and revealed that emulating as a supreme ac, and worked hard to assess the network’s capabilities and vulnerabilities that they strive to strive to.
Starlink is not operated in China, but nevertheless, Musk’s satellites can wipe out Chinese territory. In 2023, researchers at China’s National Defense University simulated coverage of Starlink in major regions, including Beijing, Taiwan and the Polar region, and determined that Starlink could achieve 24-hour continuous coverage in Beijing.
“The coverage capabilities of Starlink constellations in all regions of the world are steadily improving at high speed,” they concluded.
In another paper, published by the government-sponsored China Industrial Control System Cyber Emergency Response Team, researchers mapped Starlink supply chain vulnerabilities. “The company has over 140 first-tier suppliers, as well as a second downstream supplier and a third-tier supplier,” he wrote in a 2023 paper. “Cybersecurity oversight is limited.”
In another 2023 paper, PLA engineers proposed creating a fleet of satellites on Starlink satellites, collecting signals, and using corrosive materials to damage batteries or ion thrusters to interfere with solar panels.
Other Chinese scholars have encouraged Beijing to use global regulations and diplomacy to contain musk. Formulate deepfakes to create fictional targets. It fires powerful lasers and burns musk equipment.
Some US analysts say that Beijing’s fears may be exaggerated, but such ratings do little to cool domestic debate. One Chinese paper is titled “Beware of Starlink.”
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Chen reported from Washington.
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