Report: China Tracking US Navy Ships from Australia

The Australian has an interesting little story out this morning just as President Obama comes into town. Apparently the Australian government made a private deal with China to operate a ground station in Australia as part of China's space program.

A SATELLITE ground station in the West Australian desert is being used by the Chinese military to help locate Australian and US navy warships in the region.

The explosive claim has been made by the nation's foremost expert on space-based espionage, Des Ball, who says the government may have unwittingly acted against the national interest by allowing China to use the ground station at Mingenew to track Beijing's space satellites.

"This ground station would help China's space-based listening devices to more precisely locate the electronic emissions from aircraft carriers, destroyers and other navy ships," Professor Ball told The Australian.

"We're talking serious stuff here . . . why was the construction of this station never announced?"

Professor Ball's claims come as US President Barack Obama today begins a two-day visit to Australia, during which he will unveil plans for closer defence ties in a move that reflects growing concerns about China's military rise in the region.

The government established the satellite ground station at Mingenew, 400km north of Perth, in 2009 and gave approval for China's space agency to use the station to track Chinese satellites.

Canberra maintains all operations undertaken at the ground station, which is operated by the Swedish Space Corporation, are for "commercial and civilian activities", but Professor Ball says China makes no distinction between military and civil satellites.

China's use of the station was not revealed publicly until Hong Kong's English daily the South China Morning Post quoted Xie Jingwen, a deputy chief of the tracking system for China's space program, as saying it had "added Australia to its global network of ground stations".

I'm not convinced this is as big a deal as Des Ball thinks it is, but I could be wrong. Either way, this is yet another example how the lines between civilian and military application get blurred when it comes to China. Des Ball is correct that China makes no distinction between military and civil satellites, and I would take that one further and suggest in many cases China makes no distinction between corporate and government property - as there are several cases where large private "shareholder" corporations operate as if the company is part of a government industrial capacity. Need an example? How about a very public one?

I'm not sure if there is fire here, but this does qualify as smoke. With that said, this would be the easiest ground station on the planet to shut down if hostilities were to break out in SE Asia between China and another state, and it wouldn't have to be taken out by military means.