On February 12, the Chinese Communist Party officially handed over a satellite ground station located on the outskirts of Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. International security experts and Western media have raised concerns that such facilities are becoming a crucial part of the CCP’s global “spy network” and surveillance map.
The key concern is Namibia’s increasing dependence on Chinese technology in recent years. The Institute for Public Policy Research in Namibia has highlighted that the country’s adoption of Huawei’s network and surveillance systems, such as CCTVs, has raised concerns about data sovereignty erosion.
Reuters previously reported that the ground stations built by the CCP overseas, ostensibly used for meteorology and scientific research, actually allow Beijing to access a global surveillance network. Western intelligence analysts are worried that Beijing could conduct ground reconnaissance through remote sensing image processing.
Analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in the United States indicates that these ground stations can be used to intercept foreign satellite signals or track other countries’ military assets. Due to the facilities being built by the Chinese side, Beijing can easily convert civilian data reception into military intelligence collection.
The Heritage Foundation has also warned that facilities constructed by the Chinese often contain “backdoors” for remote extraction of sensitive information by servers in cities like Shanghai.
Although the Chinese Ambassador to Namibia, Zhao Weiping, has emphasized that the facility is “fully owned and operated independently” by Namibia, China will continue to support the local technical personnel it has helped train. However, according to Reuters, due to the high technical threshold of such facilities, local operations will still depend on CCP experts stationed there for an extended period, meaning that Beijing can still effectively intervene in the satellite data and electronic signals received by the station.