China aims to match the U.S. as the world's leading space power and is catching up fast, especially when it comes to satellites -- giving Beijing the potential to impair rival networks and blunt U.S. military might.

Among other advances, Beijing has made strides in upgrading its GPS-rivaling navigation system and its "remote-sensing" abilities -- the use of satellite technology to capture data from the Earth's surface -- according to analysts.

These systems give China the ability to gather intelligence and conduct military operations with greater precision -- ultimately undermining Washington's ability to project power. The Pentagon has voiced concern about China's growing abilities, while the State Department has accused Chinese companies of providing satellite imagery that Iran could use to target U.S. forces in the Middle East.

"Beijing sees space as an arena for geopolitical competition, where the United States is the main competitor," said Clayton Swope, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "China now can do a lot of what the U.S. can do from space."

China has accelerated its deployment of civilian and military hardware into orbit, with technological advancements and growing constellations of satellites that help Beijing track events on Earth in real time and in greater detail than ever before.

China's gains have spurred calls by officials in Washington to head off what they see as Beijing's quest to displace the U.S. as the pre-eminent space power.

China has "a growing array of space-based capabilities that has strengthened its ability to coordinate its own operations as well as to conduct the persistent surveillance and targeting of U.S. forces," the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its latest annual report to Congress.

Top performers

China's gains in remote sensing are driven by what Western analysts say is world-leading research in sensors and satellite positioning technologies.

Chinese systems were ranked as top performers in five out of 11 technological categories in a 2024 CSIS-led report on commercial remote-sensing satellites. American systems topped four categories.

Beijing's advancements will likely enable its military to monitor and attack U.S. forces more successfully, with greater range and precision, OTH Intelligence Group, a U.S. consulting firm, said in a 2024 report to a congressional commission.

China's military, which launched its own space force in 2024, has access to more than 510 satellites with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance technologies that boost Beijing's ability to track the movement of U.S. forces, including its aircraft carriers and other assets, according to the U.S. Space Force.

The advancing capabilities and growing numbers of China's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites "have increased its ability to monitor U.S. and allied military assets and activities throughout the Pacific and provide targeting support to long-range kill chains," or the process of identifying, attacking and destroying targets, the Pentagon said in December in its latest annual report on the Chinese military.

Experts say these new satellites offer higher resolution imagery that China can use to identify and track U.S. forces more effectively in Asia, potentially including relatively small objects such as combat aircraft, even those with stealth technology.

Such imagery can be analyzed using artificial intelligence to extract timely military intelligence, including for targeting enemy units.

Chinese commercial AI startup MizarVision has been posting on social media its analyses of U.S. military deployments based on satellite imagery -- including the movements of American aircraft carriers and bombers. The U.S. State Department placed sanctions on MizarVision in May for allegedly "providing satellite imagery that enables Iran's military strikes against U.S. forces in the Middle East."

"The war in Iran illustrates how military space power can be bought as a service, including from third-party countries," said Swope of CSIS.

Chinese researchers have also recently scored breakthroughs in laser-communication technology, achieving two-way data transmission between a satellite and a ground station at one gigabit per second over a distance exceeding 40,000 kilometers (around 24,800 miles), according to state media. These capabilities could pave the way to virtually real-time satellite surveillance.

Such technology could be used for military purposes, the Pentagon said in its December report. Beijing is also building large constellations of smaller and cheaper communications satellites in Low Earth Orbit to make its networks more resilient and potent in supporting military attacks, the Pentagon said.

Rivaling GPS and the U.S.

China's equivalent of the U.S. government's Global Positioning System, BeiDou, provides global positioning, navigation and messaging services that boost the Chinese military's capabilities to conduct major operations and precision strikes over long distances.

Some experts say BeiDou can provide data with accuracy comparable to or better than GPS, depending on location and weather conditions. BeiDou, with 56 satellites deployed across three types of orbit, offers more resiliency than GPS, which relies on 31 satellites in medium Earth orbit.

BeiDou's advances "would enable Chinese forces to strike U.S. forces with greater range and precision," the OTH report said.

The U.S. Space Force has warned that China is also developing "counterspace capabilities" that could be used as offensive weapons to disable or move enemy satellites, and that the Chinese military has ground-based laser weapons capable of temporarily blinding or permanently damaging satellite sensors.

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency has assessed that China probably intends to field antisatellite weapons able to strike targets as high as 36,000 kilometers (around 22,320 miles).