CHINA is building a huge Star Wars army in space — tripling the number of its spy satellites in six years.
Experts warn the Communist superpower could use them to support an invasion of Taiwan, with submarines firing missiles at targets that have been identified by the space tech.
And US chiefs say that China’s President Xi Jinping is determined to make the Indo-Pacific region a no-go area for Western forces.
China has some 350 surveillance satellites focused on the area, a 300 per cent increase from 2018, the US Space Force warned this week.
They could let Beijing blast targets which are thousands of miles away, even beyond the curve of the Earth.
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Existing stocks of ballistic missiles would also be able to hit targets more precisely, the US said.
Col Raj Agrawal, commander of America’s Space Delta 2 force, said China was expanding its military power via a new space race.
Speaking at the US embassy in London, he said: “The Chinese have demonstrated clear intent with what they are fielding in space, and that intent is for the projection of power in the Indo-Pacific.
“The Chinese are posturing forces in such a way to make the Indo- Pacific prohibitive in terms of US and allied freedom of manoeuvre.”
Lt Col Travis Anderson — chief of a Space Force intelligence squadron — said China’s power “allows them to look into the Indo-Pacific and find US and allied forces’ ships”.
He said China’s constellation of military satellites was also “growing much faster than the US”.
Lt Col Galen Thorp said: “Their use of space extends their ability to target at longer distances.
“It is twofold. Their space-enabled capabilities could be used to target Taiwan directly.”
He also warned that Beijing could extend the range of ballistic missiles “to a distance that makes intervention more challenging” if the US responded to an invasion of Taiwan.
He added: “The ballistic range has been there for a long time, but the ability to precisely target beyond the horizon, beyond what you can see with traditional radars is what space for them has enabled.”
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China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province and has not ruled out force to take the island.
Earlier this month Gen Stephen Whiting, commander of US Space Command, said China was moving at “breathtaking speed”.
He said: “They’ve built a kill web over the Pacific Ocean to find, fix, track and, yes, target United States and allied military capabilities.”