China warns US space weapons could fuel arms race

China urged the United States to halt its military build-up in outer space after Washington acknowledged it has weapons deployed in orbit, while Chinese state media warned the move could fuel a global arms race.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Beijing opposed the weaponisation of outer space and turning it into a war zone.

"We urge the US to stop expanding military build-up in outer space, and uphold global strategic stability with concrete actions," Guo told a regular press briefing on Tuesday.

US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said on Monday the United States had "on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action", the strongest acknowledgement yet by a Pentagon official of US weapons in orbit. Meink did not identify the weapons.

China's state-backed Global Times said in a report on Tuesday that the disclosure exposed what it called Washington's pursuit of "space hegemony" and risked fuelling a global space arms race.

Chinese military analyst Song Zhongping told the newspaper the acknowledgement marked a shift from protecting space assets and relying on ground-based counter-space systems towards directly deploying weapons in orbit.

"If the US continues down this path, other countries may be forced to respond," Song said.

Last week, state news agency Xinhua said in an analysis of a US orbital military exercise that Washington's push to weaponise 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.