Chinese officials are watching closely a Taiwanese remote sensing satellite that they feel could be used for military purposes.
China's military is covertly buying U.S. commercial satellite photographs of Taiwan that U.S. intelligence officials say will be used to target the island with the mainland's growing arsenal of cruise and ballistic missiles. Satellite photographs of most of the island are being purchased by China through a South Korean company, U.S. intelligence officials say.
Taiwan has formed an alliance with Israel to share an Israeli imaging satellite while it passes over the Chinese mainland.
The satellite will be used primarily in territorial surveying, city planning, crop yield assessment, disaster monitoring, and space science experimentation but Taiwanese defense officials are also concerned about its military value.
An American commercial remote sensing satellite has recently acquired very high resolution images of Chinese missile and air force bases, possibly for Taiwanese defense clients.