Chinese and Russian officials held secret meetings in China on military cooperation that included plans to shoot down Starlink satellites now providing key communications for Ukraine’s army, according to documents obtained by investigators at three news outlets.
The classified documents outline a series of clandestine military forums between Chinese and Russian military personnel. One document revealed a joint plan to attack one of SpaceX founder Elon Musk’s most important projects — Starlink satellites.
The documents were obtained jointly by The Insider, Der Spiegel and Le Monde. They include four slide presentations from a November 2023 meeting called the Third China-Russia Military-Technical Cooperation Forum in Guangzhou, China.
During the sessions, the two militaries discussed five weapons areas — space weapons and attacks on satellites, integrated air and missile defense, autonomous swarm and loitering munitions, next-generation armored vehicles and military aviation, the news outlets reported July 9.
“Taken together, the documents expose China’s professed neutrality in Russia’s ongoing war of conquest in Ukraine as a fiction,” The Insider reported. “Instead, they show a partnership that has moved well beyond shared rhetoric into a structured, multi-disciplinary program to build weapons neither country could develop alone — reaching into the most sensitive strategic systems.”
The reports contradict official Chinese government claims of neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
China has been accused by U.S. military officials of providing significant indirect military support to Moscow, mainly in the form of electronic components, machine tools, and drones that have boosted Russia’s war effort.
European intelligence services concluded recently that the Chinese military secretly trained about 200 Russian personnel in China in late 2025, Reuters reported in May.
One slideshow marked “internal” on countering Starlink was delivered by two researchers from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), a major defense and space contractor.
The researchers described the hundreds of Starlink satellites as a threat that imposed a “space blockade” by packing low-Earth orbit and using up key bands of the electromagnetic spectrum.
The Chinese plan calls first for using legal and diplomatic pressure to limit Starlink from expanding the number of satellites, blocking Starlink’s access to physical space with limits on communications bands and orbits, and joint jamming operations in key locations.
Another level of activity calls for destroying the satellite network through cyberwarfare — “access spoofing, virus infection, and the exploitation of vulnerabilities,” the document stated.
The action would seek to place malware in terminals and networks to freeze the control system.
“The slide doesn’t specify what type of weapon this might be, although it could theoretically consist of a single rocket munition that disperses clouds of high-density projectiles such as ball bearings, if not a single launch vehicle that releases hundreds of low-cost, shoebox-sized CubeSats, which could ram into Starlink satellites,” the report said.
China appears to have advanced its plans since the 2023 conference. Military writings in China have discussed using laser and microwave weapons and anti-satellite missiles against satellites.
“The findings about the considerable extent of Chinese support for the Russian military are extremely worrying,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told Der Spiegel. “China must know that this violates the absolute core of European security interests.”
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