Researchers at the Beijing Institute of Telecommunications believe that Starlink poses a threat to China’s national security due to its “significant potential for military applications”.
Starlink is Elon Musk’s global connectivity project, comprised of thousands of satellites orbiting low Earth, connecting with ground stations to provide high-speed internet services.
Starlink is Elon Musk’s global connectivity project.
In an article published in the journal Modern Defense Technology, a team of five researchers argues that Starlink could be utilized by the U.S. military, prompting them to call for China to develop weapons to neutralize this internet connectivity network. “Further development of related technologies and disabling capabilities is necessary,” the research team wrote.
The researchers assert that China needs to “vigorously develop countermeasures” and prepare to “use a combination of soft kill and hard kill technologies” against this satellite network.
The article concludes that China must address the Starlink system to “maintain and gain an advantage in this fierce space competition.”
One advantage of Starlink is its ease of deployment, demonstrated by its technology being introduced to Ukraine when the country’s traditional mobile network was destroyed during the conflict with Russia.
In March of this year, Dmitry Rogozin, the director of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, stated that Starlink is no longer a “purely civilian” technology, following Musk’s direct response to a Twitter plea from the Ukrainian government for access to the satellites.
American researchers propose using Starlink as an alternative to GPS, as this decades-old global positioning system is viewed by many countries as a target for attacks to undermine Western military strength.
Analysts believe that China could target Starlink in the event of a conflict occurring in Taiwan, where the U.S. may intervene to support the self-governing island.
On May 23, U.S. President Joe Biden declared that he would defend Taiwan if Beijing launched a military attack. Biden stated that the U.S. has a “commitment” to protect the island that China considers a temporarily separated province.
