The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has deployed space resources to track and post information about United States forces in the conflict between the U.S. and Iran. Whether the nation, which is working behind the scenes in negotiations, is supplying targeting and other data directly to Iran’s military remains open to debate.
Beijing denies it, but experts quoted by Al Jazeera Media Network say yes, based on an increase in the accuracy of Iran’s attacks since the U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury on February 28.
Chinese satellite imagery of the conflict zone has been spreading since the operation began, The Wall Street Journal newspaper reported. This includes claims on social media by Chinese artificial intelligence company MizarVision that it has used AI to analyze satellite data and track movements of U.S. aircraft carriers, F-22 stealth fighters and B-52 bombers, the Journal reported.
The U.S. assets include carriers supporting the military operation — the USS Gerald R. Ford and the USS Abraham Lincoln, MizarVision said on the Chinese social media site Weibo. News organizations could not confirm the company’s claims. U.S. politicians have warned that Iranian forces may be relying on commercial satellite data from several sources, the Journal reported.
The rise of commercial satellite imagery has opened to public view the kind of battlefield information once closely held by sovereign military and intelligence interests. In April, California-based Planet Labs, a leader in the field, stopped supplying imagery to the public from Middle East conflict zones after the Pentagon expressed concern it could provide adversaries with “tactical leverage.” Chinese satellite companies operate under no such limitations.
In addition, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, an advisor to Congress, reported in March that Iran may be using its access to the CCP’s BeiDou satellite navigation system to direct drone and missile strikes across the Middle East. BeiDou is the Chinese version of the U.S.-operated GPS. Still, the commission concluded, “open-source evidence does not yet allow for a definitive assessment.”
As of August 2024, Chinese commercial satellite companies were participating in business exchanges with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to the 2025 Annual Report to Congress from the Department of Defense (now the Department of War).
Suspicions about Chinese support for Iran comes as U.S. intelligence agencies are seeing signs that Russia has provided the Iranian military with satellite intelligence to help target U.S. ships and military and diplomatic installations, The New York Times reported.
The CCP is the top purchaser of Iran’s oil and the nation’s No. 1 trading partner. It has used its leverage to urge Iran back to the negotiating table to bring an end to the ongoing conflict, the Associated Press reported. What’s more, the Iranian ballistic missile program that executed hundreds of launches across the Middle East in the early days of Operation Epic Fury was built with Chinese technology, the U.S. government has said.
Eliminating the ballistic missile program has been identified as one objective of the U.S.-Israeli operation. A White House news release April 8 said more than 85% of Iran’s defense industrial base, including most ballistic missiles, launcher vehicles and long-range attack drones, had been destroyed. In a list of damage inflicted during the early days of the operation, the news release also said, “Iran’s once-vaunted space program has been devastated. Seventy percent of its launch facilities and ground control stations have been destroyed or degraded, preventing the regime from using space for military purposes.”
During a speech April 15, U.S. Space Force Gen. B. Chance Saltzman provided two examples of how Guardians — working with operation leader U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) — helped execute Operation Epic Fury. The leader of a unit under indirect fire via space electronic warfare accelerated maintenance to keep her weapon system in the fight, Saltzman said. And a crew commander hastily redeployed her own electronic warfare system from one theater to another to serve evolving combat priorities.
“This the first time a Guardian had ever relocated one of these systems across multiple areas of responsibility on a single deployment,” said Saltzman, chief of space operations, speaking at the Space Symposium in Colorado, “and in doing so, enabled the CENTCOM commander to achieve a variety of complex military objectives across the battlespace.”
Overall, the CCP’s defense relationship with Iran has been focused on an annual trilateral naval exercise with Russia, limited bilateral military training and China-based companies’ sale of dual-use components for Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs, according to the DOD report to Congress. Defense ministers from the two nations conduct reciprocal visits almost every two years, but Beijing probably is reluctant to deepen the modest defense relationship “for fear of diplomatic blowback and sanctions,” the report said.
Apogee is a publication of U.S. Space Command