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The new ‘star wars’: China’s battle for satellite information space
Starlink’s critical role in the Ukraine war has spurred Chinese military planners to counter Western dominance in space-based communications links
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China’s race to compete in the launch of low-orbit satellites designed to offer Internet connections is yet another space development Western intelligence will have to monitor.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
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Keeping up with China’s various space programmes is rapidly becoming a full-time occupation for Western intelligence agencies. As the latest leaks of United States classified Pentagon papers reveal, Washington was hardly surprised by the appearance of what it claimed was a Chinese spying balloon in early February.
In reality, the Americans knew and had been tracking China’s balloons for years; the operation was so well established that the Pentagon even had a system assigning code names to each tracked balloon, inspired by the names of notorious US criminals.
