"We can confirm the reporting that Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co., Ltd. (CGSTL) is directly supporting Iran-backed Houthi terrorist attacks on U.S. interests," State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said on April 17th at her regular press briefing
Specifically, CGSTL has been providing targeting data and probably raw satellite imagery to the Houthis for their attacks on U.S. Navy vessels in the Red Sea.
China did not issue a clear official denial of the State Department charge.
By now, one thing is clear: China's regime, despite repeated warnings from Washington, is helping the Yemen-based militia try to kill American sailors.
The Trump administration should designate the Chinese regime as an enemy and impose costs accordingly.
CGSTL is a commercial venture owned in part by the Jilin provincial government and the Jilin-based Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, a part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The Chinese Academy of Sciences is a state research institution.
CGSTL has, it says, the mission of "serving 7 billion people on the globe with the remote sensing information product integrating sky, space, and ground."
Its customers include the worst elements in the world. In December 2023, for instance, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the company, along with Beijing Yunze Technology Co., for providing "high-resolution observation satellite imagery to U.S.-designated Private Military Company 'Wagner'" — the infamous paramilitary Wagner Group of Russia.
No state-controlled enterprise such as CGSTL, in China's near-total surveillance state, could provide such data or imagery without the knowledge and approval of China's Communist Party.
This means the Chinese regime was deliberately aiding attacks on vessels in the Red Sea, including U.S. Navy ships. "Beijing's support, by the way, of that company, the satellite company, even after we've engaged in discussions with them about this — the fact that they continue to do this is unacceptable, certainly contradicts their claims of being peace supporters," Bruce said.
The Houthis began attacking shipping in the Red Sea in October 2023 in support of Hamas's assault on Israel. The United States, Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reports, "initially sought Chinese help in organizing an international coalition to protect shipping and counter the attacks."
Beijing refused the request and tried to come to terms with the militant group in a side agreement. Nonetheless, the Houthis attacked a Chinese ship last year. "Providing satellite data that is being used to identify U.S. and other ships in the Red Sea for missile strikes appears to be part of a deal between Beijing and the Houthis that would end attacks on Chinese shipping," reports Gertz.
The U.S. did not announce sanctions on CGSTL when Bruce made her comments, so imposing those measures is the first thing to be done.
Yet China has insulated its companies from Washington's measures. "It is time for attribution," Blaine Holt, a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general, told Gatestone. "Look for Chang Guang's 'Center of Gravity.'"
"Where do they bank?" Holt, who has participated in numerous Sino-U.S. Track II dialogues and lectured in China at universities and think tanks, asked. "Where is the management team? Do they have kids studying in the U.S.? What other business lines do they have?"
"Continued Communist Party aggression must inform U.S. government policy about permitting American businesses to continue ties with China," he says. "We must show strength when they are so weak."
Sanctions, however, should hit more than CGSTL.
For one thing, the Communist Party of China, which should also be sanctioned, runs a unitary state and demands absolute obedience from all parties in society. Businesses and state research institutions may operate as separate entities and may have separate controlling institutions, but they are not separate. Washington must stop assuming that Chinese society is organized the same way as America's.
All Chinese entities should, therefore, be treated as one single organization. It is time for American officials to stop playing what has become sanctions whack-a-mole.
"The United States will not tolerate anyone providing support to foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Houthis," Bruce said on the 17th.
Unfortunately, the United States has in fact long tolerated Beijing's support to such groups, which means it is time to change course and now go after the Chinese regime hard. Among other things, President Donald Trump should invoke the Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917 and end trade and investment ties with China. China's regime, by its actions and its words, is America's enemy.
"We have to stop China before they sink an American ship," says Holt, reminding us of what is at stake. "The time to act is now."
Gordon G. Chang is the author of Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.
