NEWS AND ANALYSIS:
China space warfare capabilities rapidly increasing
China is rapidly building up space warfare capabilities to destroy U.S. satellites in a future conflict and assist in conducting long-range attacks, according to a new Space Force intelligence report, which provides new details on Chinese military space capabilities, an area Beijing calls the new domain for warfare.
“China’s improving space-based capabilities combine with the PLA’s growing arsenal of long-range precision weapons to enable long-range precision strikes against U.S. and allied forces,” the Feb. 21 report states.
According to the report, China’s space program is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “China Dream” policy that seeks to make Beijing the dominant world power.
Tensions remain high with China over the future of Taiwan. Chinese military forces have been conducting aggressive activities around the island democracy. Drills this week included sending scores of warplanes and numerous warships into nearby airspace and surrounding waters.
Chinese government officials said the latest military operations were meant to signal Beijing’s displeasure with what it interpreted as a recent State Department policy shift in U.S. policy regarding the conflict. An updated department fact sheet on Taiwan removed language that had stated that the U.S. does not support independence for the island democracy.
The Space Force report said since 2015 Chinese space operations grew by 620%, adding 875 satellites, including hundreds used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. China’s total satellite fleet now numbers 1,060.
In December, the People’s Liberation Army, which runs both civilian and military space activities, launched a new remote sensing satellite. “The satellite could allow China to persistently monitor U.S. and allied forces in the Pacific region,” the report said.
The PLA’s more than 510 intelligence satellites use optical, multispectral, radar, and radio frequency sensors that can detect U.S. aircraft carriers, expeditionary forces and air wings, the report said. The satellites will allow China to use its precision-guided anti-ship ballistic missiles to attack U.S. aircraft carriers, key elements of military power projection in the region.
The PLA has deployed two such missiles, the DF-21D and DF-26B, dubbed “carrier killers” by Beijing.
China also deployed three reusable space planes that during space transit released unidentified objects.
For on-orbit space warfare, or counterspace operations, the PLA has at least 10 satellites that can conduct orbiting spy operations.
“Intelligence suggests the PLA likely sees counterspace operations as a means to deter and counter U.S. military intervention in a regional conflict,” the report said. “Moreover, PLA academics stress the necessity of ’destroying, damaging, and interfering with the enemy’s reconnaissance…and communications satellites’ to ’blind and deafen the enemy.’”
China in 2007 destroyed a defunct weather satellite with a ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missile, creating 2,700 pieces of dangerous pieces of orbiting debris.
“That missile evolved into an operational ground-based system intended to target [low-Earth-orbit] satellites,” the report said. “The PLA actively trains on this system today.”
Intelligence also indicates the PLA is working on ASAT missiles that can destroy satellites in geosynchronous orbit, some 23,000 miles in space.
“In 2013, China launched a ballistic object which peaked at 30,000 km, suggesting it may already have a basic ASAT capability against higher orbits,” the report said.
For grappling and crushing satellites, the PLA is working on inspection and repair systems that can function as weapons. For example, the Shijian-21 satellite was used in 2022 to move a navigation satellite to a “graveyard orbit” higher than geosynchronous orbit. The technology can be used to grapple other satellites, the report said.
Multiple maneuvering satellites also have been spotted conducting unusual, large and rapid maneuvers in high orbit. The activities demonstrated tactics that have various military applications.
Space Force Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations, said at a defense conference this week that five Chinese satellites have been detected conducting battle maneuvers.
“There are five different objects in space maneuvering in and out around each other, in synchronicity and in control,” Gen. Guetlein said. “That’s what we call ’dogfighting in space.’ They are practicing tactics, techniques and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another,” he said, as reported by the newsletter Breaking Defense.
PLA lasers also can be used to disrupt and damage delicate satellite sensors, and the Chinese military is working on high-powered lasers that by the mid-to-late 2020s will be able to damage satellite structures.
“PLA military exercises regularly incorporate jammers against space-based communications, radars and navigation systems like GPS,” the report said. “Intelligence suggests the PLA may be developing jammers to target [satellite communications] over a range of frequencies, including U.S. military protected extremely-high-frequency systems.”
Chinese military shows off Taiwan invasion barges
The People’s Liberation Army has unveiled the first of what are expected to be as many as five special barges with bridges capable of overcoming minefields during a potential future invasion of Taiwan.
“Anyone wondering what an invasion of Taiwan might look like now has a fresh visual clue,” wrote Naval News analyst H.I. Sutton about the new barge.
The first barge was photographed at a shipyard in Guangzhou, China, with PLA forces shown conducting exercises. The barge lays out a road-like structure above the water that produces a 2,500-foot causeway capable of handling military vehicles and troops.
The most distinctive feature of the first vessel, called Shuiqiao, is its last section — a 360-foot crane-like bridge extending from the bow that can cross water, mud, seawalls, mine and other beach obstacles.
Andrew S. Erickson, a professor of strategy at the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute, said the barges have no international parallel or obvious commercial use. The barge appears to be “the missing piece in the puzzle for China to be able to attempt to deploy ferry-delivered, follow-on forces in support of an amphibious assault to the most advantageous locations along Taiwan’s coastline,” Mr. Erickson said.
The barge would allow the PLA to use commercial ships for an invasion without having to first take control of a Taiwanese port as a landing spot.
“A single ship can extend over key obstacles and other hazards,” he said. “Connecting multiple ships in end-to-end configuration, preliminary efforts at which have now been observed, could offer a lengthy bridge indeed.”
Images of the barge were first posted on Chinese social media earlier this month and reposted on X.
The barges further undermine the claims of some U.S. military officials who say China’s military is unable to conduct the difficult task of launching an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the PLA to be ready militarily to take Taiwan by force by 2027.
Then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley said in September 2023 that a Chinese military assault against Taiwan “is a very, very high bar” and “the most complex of all operations to do.”
“Frankly, the Chinese military capability is probably not there right this second to do that,” he said.
Pentagon intelligence analysts also for many years asserted that China would be unable to conduct an invasion across the 100-mile wide Taiwan Strait, owing to a lack of amphibious lift ships and other needed equipment. Some private China analysts in the past also ridiculed a PLA invasion as likely ending as a “million-man swim.”
But in recent years, new intelligence has found that the Chinese navy is rapidly building a significant invasion capability. China built and commissioned three large amphibious landing ships called Type 075 ships in 16 months from 2021. A fourth is under construction and eight of the ships are planned — a key indicator of a potential invasion force.
The Type 075 is a helicopter carrier that will ferry large numbers of Marines, armored vehicles and air-cushioned troop transports.
The PLA also is building another class of helicopter landing assault ship called the Type 076. The first warship is already under construction, according to the Pentagon.
The Indo-Pacific Command also stated in a legal report that the PLA plans to use commercial roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ships in amphibious invasion rehearsals.
Normally, direct insertion of troops into conflict is “a belligerent act normally reserved for warships,” the report said.
“By demonstrating intent to use commercial ROROs during an amphibious invasion, the PLA is eroding the principle of distinction under the law of armed conflict and obscuring crucial lines between warships and non-warships, civilians and combatants, and civilian objects and military objectives,” the report said, adding that the PLA’s use of commercial ships should be condemned.
U.S. nuclear attack sub visits Australia
The advanced Virginia-class attack submarine USS Minnesota deployed to the port of Perth, Australia, recently in a show of force under the agreement by Canberra to buy four of the submarines.
The southwestern Australia port call coincided with provocative Chinese naval operations near the continent that included unannounced live-fire drills off the Australian coast.
The Navy’s Pacific Fleet said in a statement the U.S. submarine arrived at the port Feb. 25 and is the first of two planned fast-attack submarine visits this year. The submarine will be training Australian submariners.
The port visit is part of the Australia, United Kingdom, United States trilateral agreement called AUKUS that will produce Australia’s first nuclear-powered attack submarines. Plans call for four U.S. attack submarines and one British attack submarine to be operating from the Perth port.
By the 2030s, Australia will receive the first of three Virginia-class submarines it is buying. Australia’s first domestically produced nuclear submarine will be built in the early 2040s.
China sent a naval task force of a frigate, cruiser, and fueler to waters around Australia beginning in late February. The warships passed within 186 miles of Perth on March 4, the Australian Defense Ministry said.
It is not known if the Minnesota conducted surveillance operations of the Chinese naval force.
Contact Bill Gertz on X @BillGertz.
