Will facility monitor U.S. missile test flights?
Observers Say Tarawa Tracking Station Expands Chinese
Eavesdropping
Inside Missile Defense May 13, 1998 Pg. 5
The People's Republic of China completed construction of a satellite
tracking station last fall on Tarawa Island, part of the Pacific island
nation of Kiribati. While
China has insisted the station is simply part of its commercial space
tracking and command system, independent observers believe the facility may
be used to monitor
U.S. missile tests conducted at Kwajalein Missile Test Range in the Marshall
Islands or Vandenberg AFB, CA.
According to Chinese news accounts, the tracking station is meant to support
Chinese satellite and space carrier rocket launches. These same reports
state that the
station is equipped with "advanced remote sensing and space telemetry
receiving units, satellite orbital measurement instruments and satellite
communications
equipment."
China and Kiribati signed an agreement on the facility in September 1996. A
Chinese firm commenced construction in early 1997 and completed work in
October
that same year.
The Tarawa station is China's first tracking station built outside the
mainland. The station stands under the authority of the China Satellite
Launch and Tracking
Control General, established in 1966 to oversee China's three launch sites
and all of its space launch and tracking activities. It is manned by Chinese
personnel.
The island of Tarawa is situated about 100 miles north of the equator and
near the international dateline, which makes it a strategic point for
monitoring trans-Pacific
communications. Its proximity to the Kwajalein atoll in the Marshall Islands
-- approximately 600 miles -- could make it a convenient site for monitoring
and tracking
U.S. missile flight tests at the Kwajalein test range.
An independent arms control specialist told Inside Missile Defense the
Kiribati site has him "puzzled." If the Chinese wanted to monitor Kwajalein
missile tests, they
could just as easily send intelligence gathering ships into the area, he
stated.
In his view, the most likely reason for the site is signals intelligence --
gathering economic intelligence by monitoring communication satellite
transmissions from
Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, that are otherwise out of reach of
tracking stations on mainland China.
An industry source stated that, from a Chinese perspective, the construction
of the station makes sense. The Chinese, he said, publicly acknowledge they
will be
launching a fair number of their own commercial satellites in the next five
years, many of which they may position in geostational orbit along the
equator. The
proximity of the Tarawa station to the equator would make it quite
convenient to track those satellites as well as any military satellites
launched in the near future.
Even if the site does monitor Kwajalein tests, its existence as a station to
monitor Chinese commercial satellites is justified, he concluded.
Another expert, Bates Gill, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation
Project at the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies,
said at the least the site
marks "an unprecedented and remarkable break from past [Chinese] practices.
"China has traditionally prided itself on not interfering or taking
advantage of bases abroad or locations abroad for military purposes," he
said.
Although this tracking facility is not a military base, "it is a step in
that direction, especially if it would have military intelligence gathering
purposes," Gill added. He
could not confirm, however, that the facility had any significant military
application or would be used to track Kwajalein test flights.
The Republic of Kiribati (pronounced Kiribass) is located in the
southwestern Pacific Ocean, northwest of French Polynesia and southeast of
the Marshall Islands.
The country consists of islands of the Gilbert, Line and Phoenix island
chains that were formerly British and American protectorates. The islands
gained
independence in 1979.
-- Michael C. Sirak