Braxton Taylor
A private, state-linked Chinese space company, accused by U.S. officials of helping Yemen’s Houthi rebels by providing satellite imagery used to target U.S. and international vessels in the Red Sea, illustrates the complexity of today’s great power competition. But a look at what public records tell us about the company is even more illuminating.
Chang Guang Satellite Technology is emblematic of the new breed of Chinese space company: nimble, innovative, and at least nominally private—yet with close ties to China’s party-state and military.
The firm was established in 2014 as a joint venture of the Jilin provincial government and the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics, and Physics. Part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the institute cooperates closely with the PLA and has been described by Chinese sources as an important contributor to China’s military modernization.
The company also received early support from the PLA Strategic Support Force, reportedly including access to its facilities, including the Satellite Measurement and Control Center in Xi’an. Within ten months of its founding, CGST launched its first satellites, an accomplishment it touts without acknowledging that it emerged from the institute a fully formed and mature enterprise, supported by ample government and military backing and nearly a decade’s worth of research.
In the years since, CGST has racked up impressive achievements, including the launch of 41 satellites on a single rocket in 2023 and a laser-communications test that transmitted data from a satellite to a ground station at speeds up to 10 Gbps. Officials have announced plans, by year’s end, to more than double the size of their Jilin remote-sensing constellation to 300 satellites that can revisit any location on Earth within ten minutes.
All this makes CGST, according to aerospace experts at Cornell University, “the gorilla in the room” of the satellite imagery market and a challenger-in-waiting to U.S. leaders such as Maxar and Planet.
But all is not smooth sailing for CGST. The company cancelled its IPO last year after losses blamed on high research costs and satellite attrition. This may have slowed its ambitious launch schedule: it apparently added just nine Jilin satellites last year, bringing the total to 117 but casting doubt on its goal of 300 by this year’s end.
What is certain is the company’s importance extends beyond mere economics.
CGST officials rarely discuss the military utility of its Jilin satellites, and never in English, preferring to emphasize the constellation’s utility for agriculture, disaster response, environmental protection, and resource management. But they have occasionally nodded to Jilin’s construction for and use by the PLA. The satellites were “built upon a foundation of military-civil fusion,” according to one official, and its satellites have “broad applications in national defense,” according to an official press release. CGST regularly releases imagery of military interest, such as of Groom Lake (a.k.a. Area 51) in Nevada; some of its images have even been released by the PLA itself.
The company’s military links are also evident in other ways. Company employees regularly meet and conduct exchanges with PLA units. The company is known to have demonstrated its technologies to senior PLA officials, including Central Military Commission Vice-Chairmen Xu Qiliang and Zhang Youxia, currently second only to Xi Jinping in the PLA hierarchy. Others present at a 2018 demonstration included then-PLA Rocket Force Commander Wei Fenghe and PLA Navy Political Commissar Miao Hua. A CGST press release said the demonstration “expanded the company’s popularity in the military and greatly promoted cooperation between the company and the military.” Since 2021, the company has all but ceased to make public reference to its military connections, suggesting it has become more circumspect about advertising these connections.
CGST also appears to have maintained positive relations with the PRC party-state. Its most recent New Year’s message—which does not appear on its English-language website—stresses support for the mission of the Chinese Communist Party, integrating Party work into its business, and using its Party members to provide the “Red Engine” for growth. In 2023, CGST was favored with a well-publicized visit from Premier Li Qiang, who urged company members to implement the instructions of the CCP Central Committee.
Beyond China’s borders
The Houthis were not the first of CGST’s alleged dalliances with non-state actors of ill repute. In 2023, the company was blacklisted by the U.S. government for providing similar imagery to PMC Wagner, the Russian mercenary firm previously active in Ukraine. According to the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control, a CGST subsidiary signed a contract to provide Wagner with high-res imagery of Ukraine and other areas in which it operates. Given CGST’s close connections to the PRC government and military, it is difficult to imagine it inserting itself into a foreign conflict in which Beijing has a vested interest without at least tacit approval. However, an Agence France-Presse investigation also alleges that the provided imagery may have included areas of Russia later invaded by Wagner in its short-lived uprising against Putin, perhaps providing the Chinese government with a lesson in how such clandestine support can blow back in unexpected and unwelcome ways.
CGST has denied any connection with the Houthis. However, in an amusing case of “methinks the company doth protest too much,” the Global Times article in which CGST’s denial appears also quotes an official from the PLA-affiliated South China Sea Probing Initiative, saying that such tracking of ships via satellite would be technically infeasible for CGST. Yet an image from the company’s own marketing at a 2017 trade exhibition shows CGST advertising exactly this capability. At the 3rd Military-Civil Fusion Development and High-Tech Equipment Exhibition in Beijing, the company’s booth touted the tracking of vessels in the open ocean. Zooming in, the image of the moving ship is even helpfully labeled “military ship.”
The role of Chinese firms in enabling the Houthis to strike at global shipping routes will certainly be debated. If U.S. government claims are borne out, they will illustrate the further globalization of the Red Sea conflict. What is inarguable is that CGST has established itself as a formidable global space-industry player, thanks largely to the favor and largesse of China’s government.
Matt Bruzzese is a senior Chinese-language analyst for BluePath Labs.
P.W. Singer is Strategist at New America and the author of multiple books on technology and security, including Wired for War, Ghost Fleet, Burn-In, and LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media.
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