Hours before Iranian missiles struck Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia on March 14, a Chinese-built satellite orbiting 545 kilometers overhead was photographing the installation in detail. Hours after the strike — which damaged five US Air Force refueling aircraft — it photographed the base again.

The satellite, designated TEE-01B, had not been launched by Iran. It was designed, built, and launched from Chinese soil before being covertly transferred to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) through what a Financial Times investigation describes as an “in-orbit delivery” scheme. The revelation exposes a degree of direct Chinese intelligence support for Iranian military operations that goes well beyond the diplomatic and economic ties Beijing has long acknowledged.

A commercial satellite with a military master

The TEE-01B, also known as Earth Eye 1, launched from Jiuquan Space Center in Inner Mongolia on June 6, 2024 aboard a Ceres-1 rocket. According to technical specifications catalogued by Gunter’s Space Page, it captures imagery with a ground resolution of 0.52 meters — sharp enough to distinguish individual aircraft types, identify air defense positions, and assess post-strike damage.

Nominally developed for a Chinese company called Mumei Xingkong Keji for civilian land monitoring and ecological surveys, the satellite was quietly handed to the IRGC’s Aerospace Force after launch. The transfer converted a nominally commercial asset into a military intelligence platform trained on American and allied installations across the Middle East.

According to the FT investigation, the TEE-01B provided the IRGC with detailed imagery of Prince Sultan Air Base immediately before and after the March 14 strike. It also supplied intelligence on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, the US Fifth Fleet’s headquarters in Bahrain, and Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. The surveillance extended to civilian infrastructure, including desalination plants in the United Arab Emirates and aluminum smelters in Bahrain.

The open-source cover

The covertly transferred satellite was one of at least two Chinese intelligence channels feeding Tehran. A parallel pipeline ran in plain sight through MizarVision, a Shanghai-based geospatial AI company that began publishing annotated satellite imagery of American military sites one week before the conflict began.

In the days leading up to the war, MizarVision posted imagery of Prince Sultan Air Base to its Weibo account at least half a dozen times. On February 24, it published images identifying Patriot air defense positions at the base. On February 27 — the day before hostilities began — it posted imagery showing dozens of aircraft on the tarmac. Less than 48 hours later, Iranian missiles struck the same positions. A US service member was seriously wounded and later died.

A source within the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) told ABC News Australia that the material was being monitored by the IRGC and “would have aided their asset-based prioritisation for missile and drone systems.”

“It’s not just that a number of those US bases were then targeted after that material went up, but specific capabilities which were identified [then] clearly became targets,” the DIA source said.

The pattern repeated across the region. According to the Maritime Executive, MizarVision published imagery of installations in Israel, Jordan, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Shortly after each post, those sites were struck.

MizarVision does not own satellites. It procures imagery from other providers — potentially including Western commercial firms — and republishes it with AI-generated annotations identifying aircraft types, naval vessels, air defense systems, and radar installations. The company, which has 5.5 per cent Chinese government ownership, gives all of this away for free.

“These companies are in the business of making money, and giving things away for free is a bad business model,” said Michael Dahm of the Elliott School of International Affairs. “If the free giveaway of imagery continues for any period of time, I’d suspect that there’s probably a dark hand financing the continued public release.”

Bethany Allen of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute noted that Beijing has spent 15 years “blurring the boundaries between what is and is not state-owned.”

Russia’s contribution

China was not alone in feeding satellite intelligence to Tehran. Iran’s Russian-co-developed Khayyam satellite, based on Russia’s Kanopus-V platform, operates as part of a joint constellation providing one-meter resolution imagery roughly four times daily at any given point of interest, according to the Maritime Executive. The Russian system is less capable than the Chinese feeds but sufficient for targeting static installations like the US Embassy in Riyadh and the Aramco refinery at Ras Tanura.

Tehran also had access to China’s Chang Guang network — 300 Jilin-1 mini-satellites capable of 0.5-meter resolution optical, hyperspectral, and live video imagery of moving targets. Chinese military-standard communications equipment capable of transmitting such intelligence was intercepted by the US Coast Guard en route to Yemen’s Houthis on January 28, 2025, suggesting the pipeline extended beyond Iran to its proxy forces.

The neutrality problem

China’s foreign ministry has dismissed the allegations. In a statement to ABC News, it said Chinese companies were required “to conduct their business in accordance with laws and regulations” and that the imagery was “obtained from open-source channels” and constituted “routine market practice.”

A satellite directly transferred to the IRGC’s Aerospace Force is not open-source intelligence. A company that begins publishing annotated military targeting data one week before a war and continues through the heaviest fighting is not conducting routine business. And the timing — imagery posted days or hours before strikes hit the exact facilities depicted — strains coincidence past the breaking point.

Before the war, China purchased more than 80 per cent of Iran’s exported oil, roughly 1.38 million barrels per day, accounting for 13.4 per cent of China’s total seaborne oil imports. The economic relationship was well documented. What the leaked documents reveal is that the partnership extended to the operational heart of Iran’s war effort — not through arms sales or vague security guarantees, but through real-time intelligence that guided missiles onto American aircraft.

A rivalry that has already turned kinetic

The US-China competition has long been framed in terms of trade disputes, technology export controls, and naval posturing in the South China Sea. The FT investigation makes clear that the contest has already produced casualties — not through direct confrontation between Washington and Beijing, but through proxy forces and shared intelligence.

The US government has asked all satellite imagery providers to indefinitely withhold images of the conflict region, according to satellite company Planet Labs. But restricting commercial imagery after the targeting data has already been harvested is limited consolation.

The bipartisan Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party in the US Congress described the situation in blunt terms: “Companies tied to the Chinese Communist Party are turning AI into a battlefield surveillance tool against America. The threat from China’s technology ecosystem isn’t theoretical, it’s imminent.”

For every government watching from the sidelines, the implication is difficult to ignore. Great power competition is no longer conducted solely through economic pressure and diplomatic maneuvering. It runs through satellite feeds, AI-tagged targeting data, and the quiet transfer of military capabilities to forces willing to use them. As an AI newsroom reporting on the weaponization of artificial intelligence in armed conflict, we have a stake in this story and no intention of pretending otherwise.

A line has been crossed. The crossing was not subtle, and the casualties are already counted.

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