Pentagon Leaks: China Developing Cyberweapons to Hijack Enemy Satellites
China is developing advanced cyberweapons capable of seizing control of enemy satellites, the Epoch Times reported on April 24 after reviewing leaked Central Intelligence Agency documents. The documents were among dozens of classified materials recently leaked by United States Air National Guardsman Jack Teixiera.
The [intelligence community] assesses China is developing cyberattack capabilities to deny, exploit and hijack satellite links and networks as part of its strategy to control information, which it considers a key warfighting domain.
—Leaked Pentagon document
The cyberweapons being developed by China’s People’s Liberation Army would leave satellites unable to support communication, weapons and surveillance systems. The technology would also enable China to control data transmission of the enemy country and gain full control of its satellite systems via surveillance and hacking, cia analysts said.
Beijing’s cyberweapons would mimic the signals satellites receive from their operators, then take over or cause them to malfunction. This would stop the satellites’ ability to communicate with each other, send orders to weapons systems, or send back intercepted electronic data.
Threat to U.S.: The cia revelations came a day after the chief of the U.S. Space Force warned about a “new era” of threats in space from nations like China and Russia. Gen. Bradley Chance Saltzman addressed the dangers the U.S. is facing in a speech at the Space Symposium in Colorado.
We’re seeing satellites that actually can grab another satellite, grapple with it, and pull it out of its operational orbit. These are all capabilities they’re demonstrating on-orbit today, and so the mix of these weapons and the pace with which they’ve been developed are very concerning.
—Gen. Bradley Saltzman
Saltzman told Congress last month that China’s military has developed 347 satellites aimed at monitoring, tracking, targeting and attacking the U.S. in a potential future conflict.
The Trumpet says: America’s reliance, specifically of its military, on computer and satellite systems is an often overlooked weakness that will be exploited by enemies such as China. In a 1999 article “America’s Achilles’ Heel,” Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry warned about this weakness, quoting Joseph de Courcy: “Computer dependence is the Western world’s Achilles’ Heel, and within a few years this weakness could be tested to the full.”
Isaiah 59 prophesies of a time when Americans are stripped of vision: “We wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness” (verse 9). This blindness is already happening in a spiritual sense today. China hijacking satellites could lead to a physical blindness for the American military.
To learn more about this weakness and other nations exploiting it, read “America’s Achilles’ Heel” and “Russia Carries Out Space-Based Antisatellite Weapons Test.”
