Does china have geosync satellites over taiwan?

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
So, does china have intelligence gathering satellites in geosynchronous orbits positioned right over taiwan?

If not, why not? I do not believe there are any laws prohibiting it, even though it would surely be frowned upon politically by both taiwan and US governments.

No matter what the political repercussions, the benefit of 3-5 satellites right over taiwan 24/7, with optical and SAR sensors would be immense. Even if taiwan is capable of taking them out, chinese would have every right to interpret that as an act of war, just like i am sure US would consider an attack on one of their satellites an act of war. Retaliation could ensue as soon as other forces are ready.

In the remote chance that such satellites would remain operational during a possible invasion, they'd be single most useful intelligence gathering platforms for PLA, period. And it could be real time data, no less.
 

FreeAsia2000

Junior Member
So, does china have intelligence gathering satellites in geosynchronous orbits positioned right over taiwan?

If not, why not? I do not believe there are any laws prohibiting it, even though it would surely be frowned upon politically by both taiwan and US governments.

No matter what the political repercussions, the benefit of 3-5 satellites right over taiwan 24/7, with optical and SAR sensors would be immense. Even if taiwan is capable of taking them out, chinese would have every right to interpret that as an act of war, just like i am sure US would consider an attack on one of their satellites an act of war. Retaliation could ensue as soon as other forces are ready.

In the remote chance that such satellites would remain operational during a possible invasion, they'd be single most useful intelligence gathering platforms for PLA, period. And it could be real time data, no less.


That was well timed Totoro ! Seems the PLA are already trying to
test their countermeasures

I'm wondering whether blinding satellites could be grounds for hostilities
in the future

Beijing secretly fires lasers to disable US satellites
By Francis Harris in Washington


(Filed: 26/09/2006)



China has secretly fired powerful laser weapons designed to disable American spy satellites by "blinding" their sensitive surveillance devices, it was reported yesterday.


The hitherto unreported attacks have been kept secret by the Bush administration for fear that it would damage attempts to co-opt China in diplomatic offensives against North Korea and Iran.

Sources told the military affairs publication Defense News that there had been a fierce internal battle within Washington over whether to make the attacks public. In the end, the Pentagon's annual assessment of the growing Chinese military build-up barely mentioned the threat.

"After a contentious debate, the White House directed the Pentagon to limit its concern to one line," Defense News said.

The document said that China could blind American satellites with a ground-based laser firing a beam of light to prevent spy photography as they pass over China.

According to senior American officials: "China not only has the capability, but has exercised it." American satellites like the giant Keyhole craft have come under attack "several times" in recent years.

Although the Chinese tests do not aim to destroy American satellites, the laser attacks could make them useless over Chinese territory.

The American military has been so alarmed by the Chinese activity that it has begun test attacks against its own satellites to determine the severity of the threat.

Satellites are especially vulnerable to attack because they have predetermined orbits, allowing an enemy to know where they will appear.

"The Chinese are very strategically minded and are extremely active in this arena. They really believe all the stuff written in the 1980s about the high frontier," said one senior former Pentagon official.

There has been increasing alarm in parts of the American military establishment over China's growing military ambitions.

Military experts have already noted that Chinese military expenditure is increasingly designed to challenge American military pre-eminence by investing in weaponry that can attack key systems such as aircraft carriers and satellites.

At the same time, China is engaged in a large-scale espionage effort against American high-tech firms working on projects such as the multibillion-pound DD(X) destroyer programme.

Several spy rings have been cracked and the FBI is increasing the number of counter-intelligence staff tracking the Chinese effort.

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Violet Oboe

Junior Member
China will extend her satrecon denial capabilities in the next several years since PLA´s Second Artillery needs some ´effective cover´ for her new road and rail mobile assets which will eventually establish a robust deterrence. (Without sufficient target information even the most advanced US hightech gadgets will only hit black holes in the dark!:D )

P.S.
I had quite a laugh about the statement of this former space command official:rofl: , does that guy really think that his chinese counterparts are actually reading coffeetable books from Uncle Ron´s Star Wars era and regard this kind of comic strip propaganda as the real thing? Fourtunately such immature and naive opinons of senior US military personnel show instructively that there are enough weaknesses in the mighty US military which can be actually aptly exploited by a determined and shrewd adversary. Hopefully PLA officers do their job of assessing strenghts and weaknesses of China´s potential adversaries in a more sober and objective way!:D
 
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oringo

Junior Member
I have no doubt that China has sats over Taiwan; just read the
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on sino*******.com. According to that article, China's SAR technology has achieved a resolution of 5m. As much concerned as China over the affairs in Taiwan, there is no reason for China to not have eyes in the space monitoring Taiwan 24/7.

Now, onto the the speculation that China has land-based laser weapons to damage sat optics. There has been a lot of speculations over the past years, but still no proof. Even if such a system existed, China has every right to protect her military secrets from foreign spy agencies, as much as America does to her military secrets. The reason why American government hasn't officially protested is simple: these are spy sats, and they cannot reveal how much damage has been done. I don't think blinding a military sat is necessarily considered an hostile action, just as you cannot blame a government for catching foreign spies.
 
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duskylim

Junior Member
VIP Professional
Dear Sirs:

While it would certainly be within China's capability to launch such a surveillance platform, I do not think there is any worthwhile reason to do so.

After all, Taiwan is less than 200 km away from China's east coast, flying in reconnaissance aircraft (of whatever variety) will be a lot easier, cheaper and faster.

China has already done so in the past, is doing so at the present and will continue to do so in the future.

Furthermore the PLAN has even conducted submarine intelligence missions around the island, using platforms rangning from the nuclear subs to the older, upgraded Mings.

Given the increasing reconnaissance budgets the newer ELINT capabilities of the PLAAF, coverage of Taiwan (which is at the present the focus of the PLA's modernization program) does not lack for persistance or priority.

I believe that Satellite recon would be reserved for more "challenging" targets like the US and India.

Best Regards,

Dusky Lim
 

Totoro

Major
VIP Professional
I was not talking about ELINT platforms, i meant that the satellites would be used just for photographic evidence, be it through optical means or creating a digital topography of an area with synthetic aperture radars. I was also talking about geosync satellites, always on station, not moving. Though that way each satellite would be able to cover a relatively modest chunk of earth, I believe that relative small number of high value areas on taiwan provides a perfect opportunity for such approach. Of course, it would require several satellites, almost one over each major airbase, for example but taiwan situation may be worth such investment.

Also, despite what may have been possible in the past, I do not believe chinese have capability to do reconnaissence flights over taiwan and get away with it. Taiwanese interceptors and new SAMs have gotten too good for that. Sure, maybe here and there some plane would be able to survive, but it'd be more of an exception than a rule, not to mention that such recon flights would be far inferior to persistant imagining provided by geosync satellites.
 

FreeAsia2000

Junior Member
Some major developements for China on the satellite issue...

EU’s Barrot Eyes Military Use for Satellite System

By REUTERS, LUXEMBOURG


The European Union should consider employing its Galileo satellite navigation program for military uses in addition to the civilian purposes for which it was designed, the EU’s transport chief said on Oct. 12.
"Galileo was supposed to be a civilian system only but I wonder whether we shouldn’t question that," Transport Commissioner Jacques Barrot told a conference in Luxembourg.
"Using it for military purposes, for defense purposes ... would be very interesting in terms of paying for the infrastructure and the investment," he said of the multi-billion-euro project.
The program, which will eventually have some 30 satellites orbiting the earth, challenges the United States’ dominant navigation system, the Global Positioning System (GPS).
It was originally scheduled to be operational by 2008, though that may be delayed.
Barrot said some EU states opposed using the system for military means because of potential U.S. opposition, but he said he did not think Washington would object to such a move.
"I myself believe that the idea of only using Galileo for civilian purposes will not persist into the future because I think that our military cannot do without some sort of (navigation) system," he said.
"I think that the debate will remain open."
Civilian uses of the system would include driver assistance, help in search and rescue missions, the monitoring of crop yields and tracking livestock.

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I read in asia times that China has a share in Galileo. Does that mean
China will get access ?
 
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oringo

Junior Member
The militarilization of Galileo is just a small step in the trend of the world becoming more multi-lateral. However, I doubt that EU would give China access to the high precision data (the participating nations are mostly NATO members as well), and China probably wasn't expecting that out of this agreement; she wants to build her own 2nd gen. GPS network. China will be building satellites and ground equipments for Galileo, which will give her much needed access to some key technologies and expertise in building and managing such a network.
 

silverster

New Member
I was not talking about ELINT platforms, i meant that the satellites would be used just for photographic evidence, be it through optical means or creating a digital topography of an area with synthetic aperture radars. .

Google Earth anyone?:rofl:
 
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