“A country's uncontrolled proliferation of commercial satellite constellations, in the absence of effective regulation, has led to clear security challenges,” a Chinese diplomat said at an informal meeting initiated by Russia.
Russia is not happy with the functioning of Starlinks, which are used by the Ukrainian army to ensure its communication and coordination.
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As the daily reveals, an unnamed representative of Beijing drew attention to the incidents in 2021, when Starlink satellites came dangerously close to the Chinese space station. He warned that such systems “crowd frequency-orbital resources,” which significantly increases the risk of collisions in orbit. After the Chinese station's evasive maneuver, the distance was then 3-4 km, which was still a lot, but it was considered too risky to approach.
Starlink has 9,400 in Earth orbit. satellites, and in the first months of 2026 their number is expected to reach 10,000.
Commercial satellites have weapons purposes
In his statement, the diplomat also assessed that commercial satellites are increasingly used for reconnaissance and communication purposes on the battlefield, which “increases the risk of an arms race in space.” He called for compliance with the Outer Space Treaty, emphasizing that countries are responsible for the actions of their companies if they interfere in the internal affairs of other countries or are used by terrorists and separatists.
Read also: Passengers of this line will have free Internet from Starlink
The Starlink network, built by Elon Musk's company, will ultimately have over 40,000. satellites. China is developing its own competing mega-constellations to provide Internet access, including Qianfan and Guowang. “SCMP” points out that the speech at the UN took place shortly after Starlink's representative accused the Chinese side of lack of coordinationwhich was to lead to the risk of collision with the new Chinese satellite.
