China on Tuesday urged the United States to halt its military buildup in outer space, a day after Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink confirmed that the U.S. has “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.” Meink made the statement on Monday, Sept. 14, 2026, in what the Space Force’s official account described as the first acknowledgment that it had deployed weapons in space. He did not identify the systems, their number, when they were launched, or whether they could strike objects in space, on the ground, or both.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo stated at a regular press briefing on Tuesday that Washington should “stop expanding military build-up in outer space, and uphold global strategic stability with concrete actions.” China’s state-backed Global Times reported on Tuesday that the disclosure exposed what it called Washington’s pursuit of “space hegemony” and risked fueling a global space arms race. Chinese military analyst Song Zhongping told the newspaper the acknowledgment marked a shift from protecting space assets and relying on ground-based counter-space systems toward directly deploying weapons in orbit.
Meink’s wording does not establish that the United States has placed guns, explosives, or missile interceptors in orbit, according to Military.com. Space Force doctrine defines space control as offensive and defensive operations conducted to gain and maintain freedom of action in space. Offensive counter space operations can impair or destroy an adversary’s space capabilities, while defensive operations protect U.S. systems. Non-kinetic options include electronic warfare that jams communications, cyber operations against satellites or ground stations, and directed energy that can disrupt or damage sensors.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty does not impose a complete ban on weapons in Earth orbit. Article IV prohibits placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit and bars military bases, weapons tests, and maneuvers on the moon and other celestial bodies. It does not categorically prohibit weapons orbiting Earth. Article III requires space activities to comply with international law, including the United Nations Charter. Possessing an orbital weapon is not itself a use of force, although threatening to use it could violate the charter if using it in the stated circumstances would be unlawful.
In 2022, the United States committed not to conduct destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests and backed a United Nations resolution to that effect. The U.S. has also produced debris by destroying a satellite, although on a smaller and shorter-lived scale. Anti-satellite attacks add long-lived debris to an already congested environment, and if debris in a particular orbit reaches a critical concentration, NASA warns that the cascade could continue without additional launches and eventually make that region too dangerous to use.
Both governments have developed counter space capabilities of their own, according to public assessments. Last week, state news agency Xinhua said in an analysis of a U.S. orbital military exercise that Washington’s push to weaponize this domain risked creating a “security dilemma,” forcing other countries to strengthen counter-space capabilities that the United States would then regard as new threats.
“If the U.S. continues down this path, other countries may be forced to respond,” Song Zhongping told the Global Times.
Meink’s statement marks the first time a Pentagon official has so directly acknowledged offensive weapons in orbit, but he provided no further details on the systems’ capabilities or deployment timeline.
Sources: Defense News · Air Force Times