Poster promoting space security Photo: China's Ministry of State Security (MSS)

Foreign intelligence agencies have been conducting remote sensing detection on China through high-precision satellites, with the intention of observing and stealing secrets from space in recent years, China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) revealed on Wednesday.

"Space security represents a frontier in the expansion of national security from traditional domains to emerging fields in the new era. It is a crucial aspect of safeguarding national strategic interests and demonstrating national security capabilities," the MSS said in an article published on its official WeChat account on Wednesday. 

It stressed that space security holds significant and far-reaching strategic and overall importance for defending the country's sovereignty, safety and development interests. 

The MSS stated that intelligence agencies of certain countries have conducted infiltration activities toward China's aerospace sector, using bribery, networking and coercion to target Chinese researchers. Their objective is to steal the cutting-edge advancements in aerospace technology.

The national security agencies, together with relevant departments, have investigated and dealt with several illegal cases in which the cutting-edge advancements in the aerospace field were stolen through bribery, coercion and manipulation, effectively dealing a blow to foreign intelligence agencies, according to the MSS.

As space technology becomes increasingly mastered by more countries and private entities, the security landscape in the realm of space has undergone significant changes. 

In the past, high-precision satellites with intelligence and reconnaissance value were controlled by only a few government agencies, which limited the scope of intelligence they could gather. 

Nowadays, however, many commercial entities possess high-resolution optical satellites, as well as satellites capable of capturing data across other spectrums, which can obtain intelligence images comparable to military-grade imagery from the Cold War era, Wang Yanan, chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

These entities may not be directly governed by any military, but they can be utilized by government agencies through commercial contracts. This means that the direction of such intelligence information can become quite complex, Wang said. 

Moreover, the platforms for these satellites to capture images in orbit have a very broad range, allowing for continuous global coverage 24/7. This means that nations are now facing a substantial shift in the security situation, the expert noted. 

Therefore, national security organs need to adapt their handling of related affairs in response to these changes.

From a technical standpoint, a comprehensive prevention of such open-source intelligence is quite challenging. "Like deploying an eye suspended at hundreds of kilometers high, potentially disguised as a commercial satellite, it would be difficult to employ strong countermeasures or to cover all areas extensively," Wang said. 

One feasible approach is to move certain activities involving national secrets indoors, while more targeted preventive measures will need to be studied to improve its efficiency.

Observers added that in light of these new circumstances and challenges, the awareness of national security prevention needs to be adjusted accordingly. 

There should be a re-evaluation and classification of security information, focusing security resources on the most critical and valuable intelligence rather than broadly scattering resources across a wide area, which may yield diminishing returns in the new context, Wang said. 

Space is increasingly becoming a key area for economic growth, military conflicts and national security. Major powers around the world have all placed growing significance on the development of space.

As a result, the competition for space resources is growing increasingly intense, as space exploration confronts a scarcity of orbital and spectrum resources. High-speed debris, including abandoned satellites and rocket remnants, is proliferating in space, heightening the risk of a collision with a spacecraft, said the MSS.

The arms race in space is also intensifying, with some Western countries establishing space combat forces and honing their space operational capabilities, often positioning China as their primary competitor in this domain. 

They promote theories of space dominance and engage in an arms race, exerting considerable effort to suppress and contain China, thereby threatening the peaceful environment in space, according to the MSS.