Chinese Eyes Over Iran

Beijing’s expanding space-based intelligence support is reshaping Iran’s military capabilities and altering the balance of power in the Persian Gulf.

As much as Iran may boast about its Noor satellite series, the real “eyes” in the sky for the Iranian government are those provided by China. According to reports, the TEE-01B satellite from China has the capacity to offer imagery with a resolution that is ten times better than what is offered by Iran’s newest satellite Noor-3. This is no small achievement because it can allow for the surveillance of U.S. activities around the Persian Gulf region. For China, however, this is not simply an act of strategic goodwill. It constitutes a calculated investment aimed at safeguarding tens of billions of dollars committed to Iranian oil infrastructure, ports, and corridors associated with the Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing is well aware that these investments may not yield conventional financial returns. Instead, Iran is increasingly treated not as a commercial partner, but as a pivotal geopolitical foothold within a broader, long-term proxy confrontation with the United States. Within this framework, Chinese intelligence support — spanning satellite surveillance, navigation systems, and reconnaissance capabilities — appears more structured and sustained than comparable Russian involvement. This is not ad hoc assistance; rather, it reflects the gradual construction of an enduring system designed to maintain Iran in a state of controlled, ongoing strategic tension with the West.

While much of the world views the ceasefire in the Persian Gulf as an opportunity for de-escalation, China is playing an entirely different game — and doing so at a level far above anyone else. Beijing is not merely supplying Iran with weapons and components. It is safeguarding tens of billions of dollars it has invested over the past 15 years in Iran’s oil infrastructure, ports, and logistics networks. Ports, terminals on Kharg Island, refineries, and transport corridors linked to the Belt and Road Initiative — these are not ordinary commercial investments. They constitute a strategic foothold in a proxy confrontation with the United States.

Chinese policymakers are fully aware that these investments may never yield returns in a conventional financial sense. The objective is not profit over a 5–10 year horizon. Rather, it is the sustained preservation of the regime in Tehran as an instrument for weakening U.S. influence in the Middle East. This explains why Chinese intelligence support for Iran is so deep and multilayered — significantly more structured and systematic than that provided by Russia. Spy satellites, the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, AI-enhanced commercial imagery, and precise geolocation data on U.S. bases and radar systems are not ad hoc favors. They are elements of a coherent strategy in which physical infrastructure and intelligence data form a unified mechanism: to keep Iran sufficiently strong to sustain asymmetric warfare, yet not sufficiently independent to reconcile with the West.

Unlike Russia, which primarily supplies Iran with weapons and energy resources, China has moved into the realm of systemic strategic partnership. It invests in the regime, protects its assets, and simultaneously provides Iran with “eyes and ears” in orbit — all with the aim of prolonging and increasing the cost of the proxy conflict with Washington. This is not assistance. It is the construction of a durable front. For this reason, Chinese intelligence support to Iran has become one of the most underestimated — and at the same time one of the most consequential — elements of the broader U.S.–China strategic competition.

There is now little doubt that during the March attacks on U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf, Iran relied on Chinese satellite intelligence. The TEE-01B satellite, built and launched by Earth Eye Co., was reportedly transferred to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) by late 2024. Through this system, Iranian command structures obtained precise imagery and coordinates of key U.S. installations — including bases in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, and Iraq — both before and after drone and ballistic missile strikes. The Financial Times, which first reported the story on April 15, 2026, cited leaked Iranian military documents, including timestamped coordinate lists, satellite imagery, and orbital analysis. Iranian commanders reportedly tasked the satellite directly toward selected U.S. targets, with imagery collected between March 13–15, 2026 — coinciding with the peak phase of the attacks.

The technological gap between the Chinese TEE-01B satellite and Iran’s Noor-3 satellite (as well as earlier Noor-series satellites) is substantial — it is not an incremental improvement, but an order-of-magnitude leap. The Chinese TEE-01B (Earth Eye Co., reportedly transferred to the IRGC in 2024) is characterized by: panchromatic resolution of approximately 0.5–0.52 meters (sub-meter), multispectral resolution of around 2 meters, a swath width of roughly 14.8 km, and a low Earth orbit at approximately 545 km, enabling 14–15 revisits per day over a given area. In practical terms, this level of resolution allows for identification of aircraft types on runways (e.g., F-35, F-15, F-16, B-52), differentiation of individual vehicles and ground equipment (fuel tankers, technical vehicles, radar systems), tracking of vehicle movement and small objects, and precise battle damage assessment (e.g., identifying hits on specific hangars or aircraft). This capability is comparable to leading Western commercial satellite systems such as WorldView satellites.

By contrast, Iran’s Noor-3 (2023) provides a resolution of approximately 5 meters (with some estimates ranging from 4.8 to 6 meters), representing a 2.5× improvement over Noor-2 (2022), which offered 12–15 meters, while Noor-1 (2020) delivered approximately 20 meters or worse. At 5-meter resolution, one can observe large infrastructure objects (hangars, roads, base layouts) and detect large vehicles (e.g., aircraft as indistinct shapes), but without the ability to identify specific types, accurately count equipment, assess detailed damage, or track individual vehicles or personnel. At 12–15 meters, the imagery becomes even more generalized, resembling a highly blurred aerial overview.

Thus, a tenfold difference in resolution represents a transition from “seeing a base” to “understanding exactly what is happening on the ground.” This is why TEE-01B represents a breakthrough for Iran — enabling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to conduct a full ISR (Intelligence–Surveillance–Reconnaissance) cycle: target identification → precise targeting → post-strike assessment. Without access to such capabilities, Iranian strikes against U.S. bases would likely have been significantly less precise and more indiscriminate. It is precisely this leap — from 5 meters to 0.5 meters — that triggered strong reactions from U.S. and British intelligence services, as Iran effectively transitioned overnight from a relatively limited regional capability to one augmented by high-resolution orbital surveillance.

China provides Iran with advanced orbital intelligence capabilities, and Russia has largely focused on launching Iranian satellites. On December 28, 2025, a Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, placing three Iranian satellites — Paya, Kowsar, and Zafar-2 — into orbit. This marked the second such joint operation in 2025, following the July launch of Nahid-2. The reported technical parameters of the Iranian satellites include: spatial resolution of up to 3 meters (the best achieved by Iranian systems to date), an orbital altitude of approximately 500 km, and an expected operational lifespan of around five years. In terms of mass, Paya is said to weigh 150 kg (making it the heaviest satellite Iran has ever placed into orbit), while Kowsar weighs 35 kg; the mass of Zafar-2 has not been disclosed.

In this arrangement, Russia acts primarily as a launch provider — facilitating Iran’s access to orbit for its relatively limited indigenous satellite systems. China, by contrast, supplies fully developed, high-end intelligence capabilities of substantially higher quality, including sub-meter imagery, data from the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System constellation, and AI-driven analytical tools for rapid data processing. In practical terms, this means that Russian support is visible and politically salient, yet technologically constrained. Chinese support is more discreet, but operationally far more effective — and consequently more consequential from the perspective of the United States.

Beijing is not only protecting its multibillion-dollar investments in Iran but is also helping to establish a highly advanced reconnaissance architecture that enables Iran to conduct more precise proxy warfare. Russia assists Iran in “reaching space,” whereas China effectively provides it with near-peer orbital awareness capabilities approaching those of major powers. This reflects a clear hierarchy within the anti-Western alignment: Russia serves as a provider of launch vehicles and heavy equipment, while China is building a deeper, technologically advanced strategic and space partnership with Iran.

Chinese intelligence support for Iran has not been limited to the TEE-01B satellite. U.S. intelligence agencies have identified at least two additional channels. The Chinese geospatial company MizarVision (a state-linked entity) has reportedly released AI-enhanced satellite imagery of U.S. bases in the region through open-access platforms. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Iranian forces used these images to rapidly identify aircraft, radar installations, fuel depots, and other targets. Analytical processes that would normally require hours were reduced to minutes through artificial intelligence. Another critical component of Chinese support is the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, China’s counterpart to GPS, which Iran has reportedly used for precision guidance of missiles and drones. Access to encrypted military-grade signals has enhanced the resilience of Iranian systems against Western GPS jamming.

In addition, Chinese satellite constellations such as Yaogan satellites (military reconnaissance) and Jilin-1 constellation (commercial but high-resolution) have provided Iran with persistent monitoring across optical, infrared, and SAR (synthetic aperture radar) domains, enabling observation under all weather conditions and at any time of day. At the same time, China has for years developed cooperation with Iran in the fields of space technology and satellite navigation, officially framed under the concept of “peaceful uses of outer space.”

From an analytical perspective (including assessments published in outlets such as Small Wars Journal and Asia Times), Chinese intelligence support to Iran reflects a classic proxy warfare model. Beijing is testing its technologies in a real-world operational environment against U.S. capabilities, collecting combat data (including the performance of Chinese radar and navigation systems against platforms such as F-35 aircraft and electronic warfare systems like the Growler), while simultaneously tying down U.S. forces in the region and diverting attention from the Indo-Pacific and Taiwan. For Iran, Chinese satellite-derived data have become a critical component of the “kill chain” — the targeting cycle that enables identification, tracking, and engagement of targets — allowing for unexpectedly precise strikes despite Western superiority in electronic warfare.

This is no longer merely a transfer of technology or components. It constitutes direct — albeit deniable — intelligence support during an active armed conflict. The TEE-01B satellite, MizarVision imagery, and the BeiDou system illustrate the depth of Sino-Iranian cooperation in both the space and intelligence domains. Even if China formally maintains distance, its “eyes in orbit” have in practice enabled Iran to target U.S. bases. The conflict in the Persian Gulf has thus become not only a testing ground for Iranian drones and missiles, but also for China’s space-based intelligence capabilities — and that testing ground remains active, even after the formal ceasefire.