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IMINT - Imagery Intelligence

China has been building a wide variety of ISR systems to provide its forces with capabilities including systems e available for military use even if nominally civilian. (China has said its policy of military-civil fusion will include the outer space and maritime domains).

The Chinese initially had a limited spaceborne photoreconnaissance capability that focused on collecting imagery over the Russian border. The Chinese also use a variety of fixed wing aircraft to collect photographic imagery. None of these systems presented a substantial intelligence collection threat to U.S. forces in the region. U.S. intelligence agencies believed that China would develop a mid-resolution electro-optic imaging system to provide the Chinese with improved capabilities.

China has developed and deployed constellations of dual-use and military satellite reconnaissance systems, especially the Yaogan (“China remote-sensing satellite”) systems, with both electro-optical imagery reconnaissance satellites and synthetic aperture radar satellites.

Further, China deployed the Gaofen 4 imagery satellite, which boasts a very high resolution but low rate of imagery — 72 images every 24 hours - reportedly intended to track American aircraft carriers from geosynchronous orbit, and may be reinforcing this with the Gaofen 13.

In addition, the Chinese Academy of Sciences started to deploy a series of nominally civilian satellites (reportedly called the Hainan satellite constellation system) to maintain a real-time watch on the South China Sea (SCS), a system that is supposed to include six optical satellites, two hyperspectral satellites, and two radar satellites.

China is making an extensive effort in ISR aerial systems (UAS). Military systems include at least two reported analogs to the American high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) Global Hawk—the Divine Eagle, which entered production before 2018, and the Xianglong/Soaring Dragon, which first deployed in 2018 — and several systems for the medium- - altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAS role. The most widely reported MALE systems are the Yilong/Wing-loong and the BZK-005, roughly similar to (or larger than) the American Predator, and the CH-5, roughly equivalent to the American Reaper. The People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) also revealed the DR-8, a supposedly supersonic UAS reportedly intended to be used for searching for aircraft carriers.