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Hayley Wong

Tens of thousands of kilometres above the Earth’s surface, Chinese satellites have been spotted moving in mysterious zigzag patterns.
Space observers – including those at the Pentagon – are not sure what the unusual manoeuvres are meant to achieve, but they are reportedly happening at higher speeds and becoming more complex.
They are also coming “uncomfortably close” to US spacecraft.
As a rising space power, China has made big advances in recent years with orbital inspection, repair and refuelling – all crucial to sustaining navigation, weather forecast, and broadband internet services.
But there are concerns that the same space techniques – employed in what Beijing considers a “war-fighting domain” – could be used to capture detailed images, closely inspect enemy satellites, intercept radio frequency signals, or even inflict damage on rival spacecraft.
In the past decade, China has developed one of the world’s most comprehensive space defence systems. It leads in direct ascent and co-orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) technologies in low Earth orbit, ahead of the No 1 space power, the United States, according to open-source data analysed by US-based research organisation Secure World Foundation (SWF) and published in April.
So much so that China’s strength in this area has prompted leaders of the American air and space forces to make rare public calls for “space weapons” this year.
With little trust between these two countries, analysts are warning of a more intense space race between as both sides seek to ensure space superiority and deterrence.
The US has historically maintained a more restrictive counterspace policy, offering little public information about its abilities and operations in the sphere.
But leaders of the US Space Force and Space Command – tasked with planning and operations, respectively – have signalled a shift towards greater transparency and assertiveness in space.
At a congressional hearing last month, B. Chance Saltzman, US Space Force chief of space operations, spelled out China’s diverse counterspace capabilities – ranging from ground-based to space-based, and from kinetic to laser to cyber.
He said that in response, the US Space Force was “actively pursuing capabilities” to defend space as an integral part of force projection.


That sentiment was echoed by US Space Command commander Stephen Whiting, who in a rare call for “space weapons”, told a defence programmes conference last month that the US needed more space-based interceptors in future combats, an idea that aligns with the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile-defence project.
Malcolm Davis, a senior defence analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said China’s push in the sector was propelling the US to change.
“China’s rapidly developing space capabilities, including counterspace and anti-satellite technologies, [represent] the key driver for the US moving away from the long-held stance of previous administrations to avoid weaponisation,” Davis said.
“It’s clear that China, and also Russia, have been moving down the path of developing a full range of counterspace capabilities for some years now.”
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has said as much. Its official newspaper the PLA Daily said it viewed outer space as “a key area for future warfare”.
In an article last year on the West’s space development for military use, it said the Chinese military “does not rule out the possibility of direct conflict in space in the future”.
It’s clear that China, and also Russia, have been moving down the path of developing a full range of counterspace capabilities for some years now
Malcolm Davis, Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Dong said it was “reasonable” for the US to be concerned about the wide range of dual-use space technologies owned by China.
Compared to America, China had invested more heavily in space research and development, while benefiting from its hi-tech “civil-military fusion” strategy, Wong said.
However, while this approach boosted efficiency, it also reduced transparency in military developments, he noted.
According to Wong, China has an edge in supersonic weapons – which could potentially travel on the edge of the atmosphere and deploy missiles against satellites. Beijing might also have an advantage in satellite approaches and manoeuvres, he added.
US policy advisers watching the rapid expansion of the PLA’s counterspace skills have urged Washington to develop a comparable suite of space tools to deter the use of “space capabilities that China is highly dependent on for joint warfighting”.
“The PLA’s operational concept for multi-domain warfare prioritises striking key vulnerabilities in an adversary network information system of systems,” Brien Alkire, a senior operations researcher at US-based global policy think tank Rand, said in testimony to Congress last month.
However, he added that, given both sides’ high degree of reliance on space for “joint warfighting” – that is, involving all branches of the armed forces – and the presence of effective deterrence from the US, China might have little incentive to escalate warfare to space in actual conflicts.
Victoria Samson, SWF chief director of space security and stability, said the frequency or intensity of Chinese counterspace capability development was not “much different from that of the US”.
“I think that the US is concerned about China, and to a lesser extent, Russia, and thus using their activities on orbit as justification for a more aggressive US space posture,” she said.
However, Davis said that “in the coming years, we’ll see increasingly sophisticated anti-satellite capabilities emerge” among the world’s space players, including on-orbit directed-energy weapons that could disable enemy satellites without creating debris in space.
He also warned of “a growing risk of cyberattack on satellites, blurring the boundary between the space domain and the cyber domain, and a growing role and risk from dual-use systems that could be exploited in ‘grey zone’ operations in orbit”.


According to the SWF report, the US does not have an acknowledged programme to develop co-orbital ASAT abilities – or devices deployed into orbit that then manoeuvre to interfere with adversaries’ satellites. However, it does have the technological capacity to develop this quickly if required.
China conducted its ASAT missile test in 2007, when it destroyed a weather satellite at an altitude of 863km (536 miles) with a kinetic kill vehicle (KKV) from the ground. A KKV relies on hit-to-kill technology, that is, it is able to destroy its target through the kinetic energy generated by a high-speed collision, without explosives or other payloads.
Since then, China has developed mature direct-ascent ASAT abilities in low earth orbit, although such abilities against deep space targets are likely to be still in the experimental or development phase.
China has carried out dozens of “proximity and rendezvous operations” in the past two decades, demonstrating increasingly complicated manoeuvres that could be applied to co-orbital ASAT missions, according to the report. But there was no public evidence of any “actual destructive intercept” of a target, it said.
Such operations in both low Earth and geostationary orbits have raised significant concerns within the international community, with US Space Force leaders likening them to “dogfighting in space” due to the close-proximity manoeuvres and potential for hostile intent.
One example involved periodic experiments carried out by three Shiyan-24C and two Shijian-6 experimental satellites last year, during which they came within less than 1km of each other.
The objects were observed to be “manoeuvring in and out and around each other in synchrony and in control”, senior US space officials said in March.
The increasingly crowded low Earth orbit extends roughly 500km to 1,200km above the Earth’s surface, while the geostationary orbit – traditionally used for broadcasting and weather satellites – lies at an altitude of about 36,000km.
Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Centre, a Washington-based think tank, said satellites approaching and manoeuvring near each other in this way could have military applications, “from gathering intelligence to potentially even disrupting or destroying an adversary’s satellites”.
There are real risks of accidental or inadvertent escalation in space
Kelly Grieco, Stimson Centre
“There are real risks of accidental or inadvertent escalation in space. [Such] rendezvous and proximity operations, for example, raise the dangers of accidental collisions,” she said.
China also has a range of non-kinetic capabilities, including “significant electronic warfare counterspace capabilities” – which are operational but not used in conflict, according to the SWF report. It is also believed to be developing direct energy weapons using lasers or microwave power.
The PLA’s newly designated Cyberspace Force and Aerospace Force report directly to the Central Military Commission, China’s highest command body, after a major organisational revamp last year. The restructuring has been interpreted by some as an increased prioritisation of abilities in these areas.
Radio jamming, in particular, was an “extremely attractive option to China” in potential conflict scenarios in the Asia-Pacific with the US, the SWF report said. This is because such warfare would be heavily reliant on satellite communications, space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and navigation.
The PLA has also closely monitored US space advances over the years, including its geosynchronous space surveillance programme, recognising the dual-use nature of advanced spacecraft and the strategic significance of extensive satellite constellations.
A PLA analysis published in 2019, the year before the launch of its own reusable spacecraft, said America’s X-37B advanced re-entry spacecraft had the potential to “transform into an aggressive unmanned intelligent fighter in space” at any time.
The X-37B was capable of long-term reconnaissance and command control, and could also carry out confrontational and strike missions, as well as “manoeuvre at high speed on different orbits, use its robotic arms to destroy other countries’ satellites, and be equipped with laser weapons”, the analysis said.
The PLA unveiled its reusable spacecraft, the Shenlong, in 2020. The following year, China launched its Tiangong space station, designed to support a wide range of scientific and technological experiments in orbit.


The emergence of Starlink, the proliferated low Earth orbit constellation that has played a major battlefield role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, prompted China to initiate its own satellite internet project, Project SatNet, beginning in 2024.
A study of open-source literature across the Chinese defence enterprise published in March assessed that military leaders were likely to view “parity” as a more feasible countermeasure to Starlink than other asymmetric capabilities – a reading that aligns with the increasing pace of SatNet satellite launches.
The research, conducted by Rand, said PLA researchers saw Starlink as highly coordinated with US defence policymakers for military dominance in space. The PLA believed that the resilient and proliferated constellation “critically degrades the PLA’s ability to conduct counterspace operations”, the study said.
Analysts caution that the widespread dual-use nature of space technologies complicates assessment and regulation. This challenge is especially pronounced with the two leading space powers locked in a head-to-head race spanning counterspace capabilities, technological innovation, geopolitical influence and trade relations.
“Almost all space technologies can serve a dual civilian-military purpose, so intent is a key question,” said Clayton Swope, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
He said while avoiding misunderstandings in space and unintended escalation was in everyone’s interest, “it is too soon to know whether there is an appetite for an agreement on space norms over the next four years”.
The rival powers have made their own proposals at the United Nations.
In 2022, the US submitted a pledge to ban destructive direct-ascent ASAT missile tests. The UN General Assembly later adopted a resolution to support the proposed moratorium, but China and nine other countries voted against it.
Both China and the US have direct-ascent missile interceptors that target the midcourse phase – the period of flight when the weapons are outside the atmosphere and at their highest trajectory.
However, instead of advocating norms of responsible behaviour like the US and its allies, “China and Russia have long argued that the biggest threat to space security are weapons placed in space and that the best way to mitigate that threat is through a legally binding initiative”, Samson at WSF said.
And while Russia made the commitment of no first placement of weapons in outer space, China had not done so, she noted.
The two countries proposed the Treaty on the Prevention of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space and of the Threat or Use of Force Against Outer Space Objects, or PPWT, as early as 2008. It was an extension of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits only weapons of mass destruction in space. But the PPWT was stalled amid challenges including vague definitions of key terms.


It was possible for the key space players to “come to an agreement on how best to strengthen overall space security because they have done this”, Samson said – referring to a recommendation report by a UN-mandated group of government experts tasked with drafting an international legally binding instrument aimed at preventing an arms race in outer space.
But she acknowledged that the dual-use features of space technologies made it “incredibly challenging to determine if an activity is intended to be a counterspace action or not”.
She cited the example of China’s Shijian-21 satellite pulling an inactive navigation satellite that was shedding pieces of debris out of geostationary orbit and into a higher “graveyard” orbit in 2022.
“You could look at this as an example of active debris removal and thus a demonstration that China is being a responsible space actor in getting a dead satellite out of a very important orbit,” she said.
“Or you could say that China has demonstrated a co-orbital counterspace capability.”


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Analysts warn of more intense space race as rival powers grappling with low trust and transparency seek both superiority and deterrence


Analysts warn of more intense space race as rival powers grappling with low trust and transparency seek both superiority and deterrence.


Will satellite dogfights be the final frontier for the US-China space rivalry?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Analysts warn of more intense space race as rival powers grappling with low trust and transparency seek both superiority and deterrence

Analysts warn of more intense space race as rival powers grappling with low trust and transparency seek both superiority and deterrence