China has forged nearly two-dozen pacts with African nations in its bid to surpass the U.S. in space.

Investments in satellites and infrastructure are winning friends – and giving China more eyes on the skies – as America slashes help for developing countries.

On the outskirts of Cairo, a cutting-edge space lab was supposed to be the first in Africa to produce homegrown satellites. Step inside the plant, though, and the made-in-Africa image begins to fade.

Satellite equipment and parts arrive in crates from Beijing. Chinese scientists scan space-tracking monitors and deliver instructions to Egyptian engineers. A Chinese flag hangs from one wall. The first satellite assembled at the factory, hailed as the first ever made by an African nation, was built mainly in China and launched from a spaceport there in December 2023.

The Egyptian satellite lab is the latest advancement in China’s secretive overseas space program. Beijing is building space alliances in Africa to enhance its global surveillance network and advance its bid to become the world’s dominant space power, Reuters has learned. China has publicly announced much of this space assistance to African countries, including its donations of satellites, space monitoring telescopes and ground stations. What it hasn’t discussed openly, and which Reuters is reporting for the first time, is that Beijing has access to data and images collected from this space technology, and that Chinese personnel maintain a long-term presence in facilities it builds in Africa.

The satellite plant, which began operating in 2023, is part of a suite of space technology that China has gifted to Egypt over the past two years. Transfers that have been disclosed publicly include a new space monitoring center, which features two of the world’s most powerful telescopes, plus two Earth observation satellites launched in 2023 – the one that was assembled in Egypt, and another manufactured solely in China. In addition, China that year launched a third, Chinese-made satellite for Egypt, one capable of military-grade surveillance, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The satellite facility is the centerpiece of Space City, a complex being constructed about 30 kilometers east of Cairo near a new administrative capital being built by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s government.

Sisi has fostered closer ties with China in recent years, including inking infrastructure and energy projects under President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Egypt, a major recipient of U.S. military aid, is not the only country in Africa being drawn into China’s orbit. Beijing has 23 bilateral space partnerships in Africa, including funding for satellites and ground stations to collect satellite imagery and data, according to the United States Institute of Peace, a think tank. In the past year, Egypt, South Africa and Senegal agreed to collaborate with China on a future moon base, a project that rivals the United States’ own lunar plans.

This is just the beginning. In a meeting with dozens of African leaders in Beijing in September, Xi said satellites, as well as lunar and deep-space exploration, would be among the priorities for $50 billion in Chinese loans and investment earmarked for Africa over the next three years. Xi’s administration says publicly it is helping boost African space programs because China wants no country left behind as economies and militaries become increasingly reliant on space technology.

Privately, China is getting far more in return for its investment. This includes access to surveillance data collected by satellites and telescopes as well as a permanent presence in facilities it builds, according to six people with direct knowledge of China’s space projects in Africa.

The space equipment that Beijing is placing in developing countries is helping China create a “global surveillance network,” said Nicholas Eftimiades, a former U.S. intelligence officer and expert on Chinese espionage operations. “China has democratized space to enhance its authoritarian capabilities … and it’s doing so very effectively.”

As China advances its relationships in Africa with technology incentives, the United States is pulling back. Billionaire Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, is heading U.S. President Donald Trump’s drive to shrink the federal government. One of his first targets has been the U.S. Agency for International Development, the aid agency that has spread American soft power around the world since its establishment by President John F. Kennedy in 1961.

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