Iran quietly secured a Chinese spy satellite in late 2024 and used it to track US military bases across the Middle East during the current war, the Financial Times has newly - an allegation Beijing has flatly and angrily denied.
The TEE-01B satellite, built and launched by Chinese firm Earth Eye Co, was allegedly taken over by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' (IRGC) Aerospace Force after launch from China, according to the report, which cites leaked Iranian military documents. Of course, the usual caveats must apply when it comes to major Western MSM reporting on an emerging 'axis of evil' doing all things anti-America: Russia, China, Iran (and certainly South Korea could soon be thrown in the mix given its pro-Moscow role in the Ukraine war).
"Recently, some forces have been keen on fabricating rumors and maliciously associating them to China," according to the official statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. In the meantime, Earth Eye Co has not commented.
Further, the Chinese embassy in Washington told the Financial Times: "We firmly oppose relevant parties spreading speculative and insinuative disinformation against China." But we should note that this wasn't exactly a full-on denial of the charge, and the embassy would likely not have a full picture of what the highest echelons of Chinese intelligence is up to at any given moment in Beijing.
Per the FT report, Iranian commanders tasked the satellite with monitoring key US military sites, using time-stamped coordinate lists, satellite imagery, and orbital analysis. The Financial Times said the images were captured in March, before and after drone and missile strikes on those locations.
As part of the arrangement, the IRGC gained access to commercial ground stations run by Emposat, a Beijing-based satellite control and data provider with a network spanning Asia, Latin America, and beyond.
One surprising development within the first month of Trump's Operation Epic Fury was that Iran's ballistic missiles were able to reach very precise locations all the way over in Jordan, where US bases were pummeled, amid an alarming trend where billions of dollars in regional American air defenses were quickly taken out. Of course, sensitive Israeli military and energy sites were also hit, especially in Haifa and Tel Aviv. Reuters has also picked up on the FT report Wednesday, writing:
According to the report, the satellite also monitored Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan and locations close to the US Fifth Fleet naval base in Manama, Bahrain, and Erbil airport, Iraq, around the time of IRGC-claimed attacks on facilities in those areas.
US outposts in northern Iraqi Kurdistan have also been repeatedly hit by Iranian drones, or at times drones and projectiles possibly sent by local Tehran-aligned paramilitary forces.
As for more specifics cited in the original FT report, the satellite was described has having captured images of Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 13, 14, and 15.
There's some credibility to this, given that on March 14, Trump confirmed that very expensive US surveillance aircraft at the base had been hit. "Four of the five had virtually no damage, and are already back in service. One had slightly more damage, but will be in the air shortly," Trump had written at the time on Truth Social.
Still, Trump is trying to 'play nice' with Beijing - even amid such public and damning allegations - ahead of his planned mid-May visit, saying in a Wednesday Truth Social post he asked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping not to supply weapons to Iran, and Xi replied he was not doing so. "I had heard that China’s giving weapons to, I mean - you’re seeing it all over the place - to Iran." This was in a newly published Fox Business interview.
FT produced the following graphic as part of its report:
"And I wrote him a letter asking him not to do that, and he wrote me a letter saying that essentially he’s not doing that." Major media outlets previously reported that US intelligence indicated China was preparing to ship advanced weaponry to Iran. Beijing's public rejection of the "baseless smear" - as the Foreign Minister called it - has indeed been swift and vehement.
Trump has also newly explained on Truth Social that China is "very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz" - this even though in many cases it is China bound tankers being blocked and turned back by the US naval armada. "This situation will never happen again," Trump added. He is set to meet with Xi in Beijing on May 14-15. On this he wrote that "President Xi will give me a big, fat, hug when I get there in a few weeks. We are going working together smartly, and very well!" But then Trump says "But remember, we are very good at fighting, if we have to."