The People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s engagement with the African continent is pursued by adopting a comprehensive approach that includes investment and economic cooperation agreements, people-to-people exchanges, and security partnerships, among others. Interest in the space sector is increasing year by year due to the need of several countries on the continent to attract more investments and increase their share in key technologies, and China is recognized as a key partner in this regard. China’s involvement in Africa’s space economy began in 2004 with its first contract for satellite manufacturing from Nigeria. Since then, China’s influence has expanded. China has entered into bilateral and multilateral partnerships, secured approximately 20% of foreign satellite contracts on the continent, integrated the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with a space intelligence corridor that “links BRI partners to China’s growing space capabilities,” and built (or financed the construction of) critical infrastructure to sustain the development of space-related activities.
China-Africa space cooperation: agreements and partnerships
In 2005, the Chinese government won the first contract for orbital launch operations for an African nation, providing Nigeria with its first communications satellite, NigComSat-1. Since then, it has launched its first communications satellites to several other countries, including Algeria in 2017 and Ethiopia and Sudan in 2019. Currently, China has 23 active bilateral space partnerships with African countries, the African Union, and the Arab League. These partnerships primarily focus on: Investment in the national space program. Contracts for satellite manufacturing (or joint development) and launch services. Training programs for staff. Joint development of Earth Observation (EO) missions. Sharing of data collected by satellites.
Some African countries have better partnerships with China than others. Nigeria has consistently collaborated with the Chinese government on the NigComSat program, and in 2018 secured additional funding of $550 million from the Export-Import Bank and the China Great Wall International Corporation (the international cooperation arm of the national space program) to add two communications satellites. In 2016, Ethiopia was able to secure a $6 million grant (approximately 75% of the total project cost) from the China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) and the China South-South Cooperation Fund to develop a remote sensing satellite, which was subsequently launched in December 2019. Since then, the country has obtained funding to build another satellite and two ground stations that will receive data from the Chinese and Ethiopian EO satellites. Egypt received various rounds of assistance to carry out several projects, including the EO program EgyptSat, the assembly, integration and testing (AIT) center in New Cairo city, and the development and launch of the remote sensing satellite MisrSat-2 in December 2023. Instead, other African countries have developed more limited partnerships in terms of contracts for the realization of a small number of satellites (such as Botswana and Malawi), the reception of satellite imagery (such as Gabon), or the construction of space stations and other types of ground infrastructure (Namibia, see below). In 2025, two major highlights of the China-Africa space partnership will be the creation of the world’s longest intercontinental quantum satellite communication with South Africa, a 12,900-kilometre communication link using China’s Jinan-1 quantum satellite. and signing a memorandum of understanding with Gabon to strengthen its EO capabilities by granting access to high-resolution satellite imagery (2-5 meter accuracy). Finally, three of the 12 partner countries of the China-led International Lunar Research Station project, which is scheduled to be established by the next decade, are from the African continent, with Senegal becoming the last signatory, joining South Africa and Egypt in September 2024.
Role of EO satellites and LEO constellations
One of the areas where African partners most need Chinese technology revolves around EO activities. This is because EO’s surveillance and imaging capabilities can impact climate and environmental issues, as well as security concerns such as war, terrorism, and violent extremism. Climate change cooperation is indeed a pillar of China-Africa relations, and security issues are deeply connected to the continent’s environmental issues. For this reason, some of the satellite development projects listed above (and many for countries not mentioned) revolve around EO for improved agricultural development and planning, climate change monitoring (e.g. to cope with the effects of large-scale droughts), and meteorological observations. Regarding the latter issue, China is expanding the services of the Wind and Cloud Weather Observation Program to 36 countries on the continent and “significantly strengthening Africa’s meteorological capabilities” by supporting agencies on the ground in disaster management situations. Fengyun is a multi-orbit satellite with “full-spectrum, high-spectrum, quantitative observations” that, in the case of the 12 Chinese partners in Africa, is combined with a shared “emergency support mechanism in disaster prevention and mitigation.” The device has already been activated on 11 occasions in the past, including during tropical cyclones Idai and Kenneth, which hit Mozambique and border countries in March and April. 2019.
A potential area for future cooperation is satellite internet through the two LEO mega-constellations China is developing, Guowang and Qianfan. As of March 2025, a total of 25 states in Africa already have access to Starlink (Chad was the last country to sign up with Elon Musk’s company in July 2025), providing enhanced internet access at a competitive price (Starlink’s kit costs an average of $400 in Africa, while competitors such as OneWeb have higher prices) and meeting the demand for satellite connectivity in regions relatively lacking in terrestrial infrastructure for internet connectivity. The history of Sino-African cooperation in infrastructure and telecommunications (technological areas that are valued by the African side while China enjoys both large production capacity and high profits) gives analysts good reason to believe that Wang and Qianfan will open up new and beneficial possibilities for both the Chinese government and its partners. These two constellations will once again give China an opportunity to present itself as an alternative to the US and European systems, leveraging the strong partnerships it has, especially in mainland China.
China has also successfully exported the services of its Beidou satellite navigation satellite constellation to African partners. Compared to its Russian, American, and European counterparts (GLONASS, GPS, and Galileo, respectively), the system goes beyond traditional positioning and integrates both a special “return link” function to send confirmation messages to those in need, and a more effective anti-jamming system that can better adapt to complex environments. For African countries, satellite navigation and positioning systems are of particular importance not only in traditional areas such as transportation, agriculture, and environmental monitoring, but also in the context of large-scale infrastructure. This is because African countries “often face problems such as insufficient accuracy of geographic information, weak traffic management capacity, and unequal distribution of resources.” For these reasons, BeiDou is already being adopted in various contexts across the continent. One example is the cross-border transport surveillance system between South Africa and Zambia. South African company BRISK FAST has installed BeiDou on cargo vehicles connecting the two countries to obtain real-time data on cargo to improve transport efficiency and safety management. Additionally, BeiDou has been adopted by the Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway to improve the quality and safety of railway construction, and in Mozambique, it has been used in self-driving agricultural machinery and a plant protection system using drones. Finally, it is currently being used in a variety of other areas, from maritime and air rescue operations to smart mining solutions.
Dual-use ground infrastructure
The African continent has also proven to be vital for China when it comes to investing in the ground-based infrastructure sector of space activities. A study conducted by the International Institute for Security Studies maps the relevance of China’s global infrastructure in the field of telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) to ensure signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities, an area that serves both civilian and military interests, in line with China’s “civil-military fusion” policy. This network of infrastructure includes 18 overseas TT&C stations across various continents, four of which are located in Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia and South Africa, and is involved in the financing and/or implementation of station construction, data sharing, construction and on-site technician deployment. Additionally, to complete the network and ensure its lasting efficiency, it deployed a four-ship “Yuanwan” fleet, consisting of ballistic missiles and satellite tracking and telemetry vessels, stationed at numerous ports in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans from 2015 to 2025. Two ships from this fleet (Yuanwan 5 and Yuanwan 7) have recently made two stops in South Africa’s Durban port to monitor Earth’s re-entry. The “secret” military spacecraft Shenron first entered service in March 2023 (after the spacecraft’s successful landing, it re-entered the port of Cape Town two months later) and then in August 2024.
International observers, particularly Europe and the United States, are closely monitoring the security implications of this “global surveillance network” that China is strengthening in the African space domain. In particular, their concerns concern China’s access to the data and images collected from the above-mentioned space facilities it has installed on the continent and the docking of the dual-purpose Yuan Wang “spy ship” in 2023 and 2024.
conclusion
China’s cooperation with African countries in the space field is fully integrated into its strategy for relations with the mainland. This provides an opportunity for investment flows into high-tech areas of civil, military, and industrial use that partner countries find attractive in order to improve autonomy, enhance technological progress, and augment the skilled workforce, in exchange for economic benefits and political support, as in the case of broader participation in the ILRS project. Challenges to the relationship between investment and capacity building are posed by the form of cooperation. In the past, China had already established bilateral partnerships for manufacturing and infrastructure construction in Africa that would ultimately develop efforts with Chinese companies, labor and technical experts, who would be redeployed locally for the specific purpose of the project, only to return once the work was completed.
One example of this is already happening in the space industry. A Reuters investigation that went viral last February, citing local sources, reported that the agreement between China and Egypt to establish the first space lab for indigenous satellite production (part of a space city built near Cairo that also includes a satellite monitoring center and two space telescopes) is in fact much of the work being done by Chinese engineers and employees rather than Egyptian personnel. Of the three EO satellites envisaged in the agreement, the first two (Horus 1 and Horus 2) would be manufactured, assembled and launched in China, while the third (Misat 2) would be “the first to leave the Cairo factory”, with all components manufactured in China and shipped to Egypt for assembly and testing.
