The spy fleet in space that can spot a moving car on UK streets

The incidents have highlighted how Beijing now has the ability to watch and catalogue military and security movements – from the Cotswolds to Carolina – with the depth and intensity that was once the sole preserve of America and its allies – and is willing to share its findings with Russia and Iran.

A former White House aide and senior CIA expert on China told The i Paper that Beijing’s burgeoning fleet of military and commercial satellites was capable of spying on Western assets such as defence manufacturing sites and there could be “no doubt” that it was sharing imagery of the UK and other European countries with its allies.

China’s growing space army

China has rapidly accelerated its space programme in recent years after President Xi Jinping announced he wanted his country to be a leading global space power by 2030.

The number of Chinese satellites in orbit has grown at a blistering pace, from about 900 in 2024 to a current estimate of more than 1,300 commercial and state-owned spacecraft. China is now second only to America in the number of satellites it controls.

Britain is among Nato countries which have already expressed concern that China and Russia are developing capabilities to attack Western satellites in space. But the ability to look down on Earth and catalogue the activities of adversaries remains a core activity.

According to intelligence estimates, more than 510 of China’s satellites are surveillance devices with global coverage. Beijing is also quickly catching up with Washington when it comes to highly classified military satellites, deploying 157 compared to America’s 257. Britain has just six.

Professor Dennis Wilder, a former White House intelligence official under Barack Obama and a CIA Asia specialist, said: “China has the capability today to target all kinds of areas of interest, including defence manufacturers.

“The imagery is incredibly useful in espionage activities. I have no doubt China shares this kind of imagery on the UK and other European countries.”

The UK assets likely to be of interest to Beijing are understood to range from defence manufacturing sites and military testing facilities such as Salisbury Plain, through to data cable-laying activities off the British coast and military exercises involving British troops abroad.

Defence sources told The i Paper that Chinese commercial satellites now match or exceed the technical specifications of Western equivalents by being able to produce images of any location on Earth within 8-10 minutes at a resolution of about 25cm – accurate enough to identify a moving vehicle. Such is the number of satellites under Beijing’s control that images of the same location can be captured every 90 to 120 minutes.

According to space industry forecasts, China sent 127 commercial satellites into orbit in January alone and is expected to launch more than 1,000 over the coming year.

Bill Greer, a satellite expert and co-founder of Commonspace, a non-profit looking to build a satellite constellation for disaster relief, said: “They can likely view any area in the UK multiple times a day, and likely with different sensors. They would [also] definitely be targeting US military, Iran, Ukraine, and all other global areas of interest and conflict.”

A Western intelligence source added: “China is increasingly making its presence felt in the space arena. Its reach is now considerable and it will be looking at the UK and anywhere else where it thinks gathering or sharing data will bear fruit.”

China ‘helped Iran with satellite targeting’

Indeed, the extent to which China is playing a role in the Iran and Ukraine conflicts has come under close scrutiny in recent weeks.

While American commercial satellite companies have been banned from selling detailed images of US military assets in the Middle East since the start of the Iran war, Beijing is widely believed by Western intelligence agencies to have provided Tehran with satellite imagery used for targeting or assessing damage.

China is also thought to have sold an advanced surveillance satellite to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the military force charged with maintaining the Iranian regime, in 2024. The satellite, known as TEE-01B, is believed to have been sold to the IRGC as part of an “in orbit” package including launch into space offered by Chinese firms. Beijing has strongly denied any such sale.

However, there is growing evidence that China is willing to use its technical prowess in space as leverage in its relationship with allies. As Kari Bingen, an expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, puts it: “China is using space as a tool of diplomacy and influence.”

One of China’s largest commercial operators, Chang Guang Satellite Technology (CGST), is already under sanctions from Washington and the European Union for providing images to Houthi rebels and Russian mercenaries in Ukraine – allegations which the company denies.

Precision warfare

Dr Bleddyn Bowen, a space politics specialist at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank and an academic at Durham University, said China’s enhanced capabilities – albeit untested in wartime -opened the door to its use of satellite data to carry out highly-precise strikes – including in aid of other states – in the event of conflict.

He said: “We’ve been used in the West to doing precision warfare, long-range airstrikes where we can hit not only certain buildings, but specific floors of certain buildings with munitions from a distance. We now have to get used to the other side doing similar things.”

Experts emphasised that when it comes to space technology, there is routinely a blurred line between private satellite operators in one country and its government, who are more often than not also the biggest customers of the data provided.

In the case of China, the result is a burgeoning ecosystem of private companies, some run by individuals with links to state defence research institutions, competing to provide Beijing and other customers with space-based data.

MizarVision, which does not operate its own satellites and sources imagery from providers thought to include China’s Jilin-1 surveillance constellation as well as Western operators, did not respond to questions from The i Paper. Chinese commentators have insisted its activities are not dissimilar to Western commercial satellite companies, although the firm is reportedly 5.5 per cent owned by the Chinese state.

Among the locations highlighted for its “geo-spatial intelligence” service is Ramstein airbase in Germany, a major US Air Force hub used as a logistics hub for transporting weaponry to Ukraine.

The Western intelligence source added: “The key point here is that these are capabilities which can be harnessed by the Chinese state whenever it wants. The ability to watch everything and supply that information to anyone to gain an advantage is now firmly a Chinese capability. We should not forget that.”