China’s Eyes in the Sky: Congress Warns Beijing is Using Latin America to Spy on America From Space

A telescope in Argentina. A satellite dish in Venezuela. A radio antenna in Bolivia. In a recently released congressional report, lawmakers in Washington are arguing that each of those pieces of equipment is something else entirely: a node in a Chinese military surveillance network quietly embedded across Latin America and designed to spy on the United States.

On February 26, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party released a new investigation titled Pulling Latin America into China’s Orbit, detailing how Beijing is using infrastructure across the region to advance its space capabilities and intelligence collection on the United States.

The report is the second installment in the committee’s broader review of China’s expanding activities in the Western Hemisphere, and its findings are sounding the alarm on the expansion of Chinese surveillance capabilities on U.S. interests and allies in the region, urging the administration in Washington to “halt the expansion” of Chinese infrastructure partnerships in Latin America.

Eleven Sites. Five Countries. One Network.

According to the report, Beijing has established at least 11 space facilities across Latin America, including ground stations, radio telescopes, and satellite laser ranging sites located in Argentina, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, and Brazil.

On the surface, each was presented to host governments as civilian-scientific cooperation programs to advance space research and technological development. The House Committee, however, argues that each base functions as “an integrated, dual-use network strengthening China’s ability to monitor, control, and potentially disrupt adversary space and military operations.”

The committee asserts that China uses space cooperation agreements to expand its ability to monitor and track satellites and other objects in space, a key function for both civilian and military operations.

The most significant facility flagged in the report is a deep-space ground station in Neuquén, Argentina. The Neuquén facility features a 35-meter antenna used for satellite tracking and deep space missions, operated by an entity linked to China’s satellite launch and tracking network, despite Beijing describing it as a civilian research installation.

Legislators in Washington are inquiring into how much access Argentine officials have to these sites, fueling debate over sovereignty and foreign control of strategic infrastructure.

A Chinese Embassy spokesperson, Liu Pengyu, pushed back on Washington’s characterization of Chinese activities in Latin America, stating that Chinese space coordination is focused on “peaceful use.”

Liu added that “Latin America belongs to the people of Latin America,” warning that “Drawing lines of spheres of influence and stoking geopolitical confrontation will not make any country safer, nor will it bring peace to the world.”

Military-Civil Fusion: The Hidden Architecture

The report’s central argument is that China’s expansion in Latin America is not accidental—it is by design. The committee says there is evidence that the CCP is leveraging Latin American space infrastructure to collect hostile intelligence and strengthen its future military operational capabilities.

The committee refers to “military-civil fusion”—Beijing’s deliberate policy of building infrastructure that serves commercial or scientific purposes on paper while remaining integrated into the People’s Liberation Army’s global architecture in practice.

The Pentagon’s own 2025 annual report to Congress assessed that China has “the largest space infrastructure footprint outside of mainland China in Latin America and the Caribbean,” and that the expansion “almost certainly provides China with enhanced space domain surveillance capabilities, including against U.S. military space assets, throughout the hemisphere.”

China’s growing space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities have, according to the U.S. Pentagon, “dramatically increased its ability to monitor, track, and target U.S. and allied forces both terrestrially and in orbit.”

Washington Pushes Back

Lawmakers issue a direct call to action for the Trump administration, which has warned of spreading Chinese influence in the region since assuming office in January 2025.

The administration has embarked on a campaign to regain influence over the Panama Canal in recent months, a critical maritime chokepoint responsible for almost 5% of global maritime trade.

The administration has also sounded the alarm over increased Chinese investments in agriculture, communications, and the banking sectors in Latin America in an attempt to reassert U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere.

Analysts have referred to the U.S. resurgence in the Americas as the “Donroe Doctrine,” the Trump administration’s corollary to the Monroe Doctrine that invoked U.S. foreign policy approach to the hemisphere starting in the early 19th century.

Members on the committee are calling on the Trump administration to “halt the expansion of Chinese space infrastructure in the region and ultimately seek to roll back and eliminate” Chinese space capabilities in the hemisphere that threaten U.S. interests.

Legislators are encouraged to see evidence that diplomatic pressure is working in at least one case.

In Chile, a proposed expansion of a Chinese space-related project was put on hold following engagement from the Trump administration, according to sources familiar with the project—a development lawmakers view as evidence that diplomatic pressure can influence host governments weighing tech and infrastructure cooperation with Beijing.

The committee also recommended that NASA review any cooperation with countries that host Chinese space infrastructure to ensure compliance with the Wolf Amendment, which restricts bilateral space cooperation with China, and proposed updating that legislation to prevent loopholes in multilateral agreements.

Download the House Select Committee report for access below:

Committee Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) put it plainly: “So much of daily American life depends on satellites in the skies above us, and that’s why China’s space operations are of serious concern. China is only investing in space operations in Latin America to advance its agenda and undermine America in space.”

For Latin American governments, the report puts a difficult question on the table. Accepting Chinese investment in space infrastructure has brought modern technology and diplomatic goodwill from Beijing. It has also, according to Washington, made those countries unwitting hosts for military surveillance operations targeting the United States.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the specifics of the committee’s findings but said it “continuously monitors developments that could affect the security environment, including space-related infrastructure and capabilities.”