The Trump administration is advancing the Golden Dome missile defense initiative with a clear eye on the growing threat posed by China’s hypersonic weapons capabilities. Integrated with space technologies, the Golden Dome is envisioned as a layered architecture for sensing, tracking, and intercepting a range of aerial threats—including ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles—from adversaries.
China’s deployment of hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) presents a formidable challenge to U.S. homeland security, propelled by advances in thermal management, delivery platforms, and space-based support systems. These HGVs can be launched from China’s intercontinental ballistic missiles—such as the DF-5, DF-31, and DF-41—capable of striking targets anywhere within the continental United States.
While experts continue to debate the Golden Dome’s projected $175 billion price tag and raise concerns over its funding and operational viability, this analysis contends that any credible effort to shield the U.S. homeland from China’s long-range missile threat must also address the expanding footprint of Chinese ground stations across Latin America.
Latin America: A critical frontier for Chinese ground stations
A comparison of active joint satellite initiatives and ground station deployments suggests that China places greater strategic emphasis on establishing ground stations in Latin America. As of 2025, China and regional partners jointly operate approximately four active satellites—primarily for remote sensing and communications—including two CBERS-4 satellites with Brazil, the VRSS-2 with Venezuela, and TKSAT-1 with Bolivia. In contrast, China maintains at least eight ground stations across the region, with facilities in Argentina (Neuquén and Río Gallegos), Bolivia (Amachuma and La Guardia), Venezuela (El Sombrero and Luepa), as well as in Chile (Cerro Calán), and Brazil (Alcântara). Although China is not directly involved in the ground stations located in Iquitos, Lima, Piura, Pucallpa, Puerto Maldonado, and Tacna, Peru nonetheless maintains significant space cooperation with Beijing through multilateral initiatives and satellite data-sharing agreements.
China also plans to invest $80 million in a major astronomical observation base at Cerro Ventarrones, Chile, featuring an Extremely Large Telescope and aiming for completion by 2028. However, the project was suspended in March 2025 amid security concerns over its sensitive location and the involvement of China State Construction Engineering Corporation—a firm designated by the U.S. as a “Chinese military company”—as the main contractor.
Ground stations facilitate long-range precision strike capability
Ground stations are central to China’s remote sensing architecture, enabling real-time operations, reducing data latency, and extending geospatial coverage. These assets enhance China’s situational awareness over the U.S. homeland and bolster the PLA’s kill chain effectiveness: find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess. Recent Chinese military activities—including hypersonic glide vehicle tests in 2021 and 2023, and an intercontinental ballistic missile launch into the Pacific in 2024—underscore the expanding reach of China’s remote sensing network, with ground stations serving as its critical backbone.
China’s deep space ground station in Neuquén, Argentina, underscores its expanding technical reach. During the return of the Chang’e-5 (CE-5) lunar probe on December 17, 2020, the station played a critical role in tracking the mission’s complex “skip reentry” maneuver—filling a key gap in China’s overseas Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) network. The telemetry data it provided was essential in calculating the probe’s reentry trajectory. This same high-precision orbit determination capability could support the positioning of HGVs equipped with sensors and advanced guidance algorithms—underlining how the return of CE-5 also validated the strategic potential of China’s hypersonic precision strike capabilities against the United States.
China’s Expanding Dual-Use Influence in Latin America
Recent analyses increasingly suggest that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) serves not only economic purposes but also strategic and military objectives. Many BRI projects—ports, airports, and digital infrastructures—are dual-use by design and located at geopolitical chokepoints, extending the PLA’s global reach. China’s infrastructure projects in Latin America are no exception.
China’s Chancay mega port in Peru—financed by COSCO Shipping—embodies the dual-use risks of BRI infrastructure. Marketed as a commercial hub, its deep-water berths and advanced cranes could support PLA Navy logistics near the Panama Canal. Similar concerns surround Brazil’s Paranaguá port and Ecuador’s Manta port, which are controlled by China Merchants Port Holdings and Hutchison Port Holdings respectively, and operate under opaque agreements that raise red flags over potential intelligence gathering and covert transfers.
A key player in China’s BRI, the PLA-linked and heavily subsidized Huawei has deeply embedded itself in Latin America’s digital infrastructure. Offering below-market bids, it now supplies 70% of the region’s 4G networks and leads in 5G deployment. Huawei also operates major cloud data centers in Chile, Mexico, and Brazil, and has built three critical submarine cables—South Atlantic Inter Link, Fiber Optic Austral, and Topolobampo–La Paz—through its affiliate, HMN Technologies.
In addition to ports and telecoms, China is investing heavily in Latin America’s energy infrastructure. In Chile, state-owned firms State Grid Corporation and China Southern Power Grid now control 70% of the national transmission network. This energy leverage could strengthen Beijing’s hand in negotiations over the suspended Cerro Ventarrones ground station project. More broadly, secure access to logistics, data transmission, and electricity enhances the performance of China’s ground stations and remote sensing systems—sharpening its situational awareness near the U.S. homeland.
The overlooked front in missile defense
China’s ground stations, remote sensing capabilities, and dual-use infrastructure are turning Latin America into an overlooked front in U.S. missile defense. As debate continues over the cost and effectiveness of the Golden Dome, Washington must rebalance its priorities and confront China’s growing space and dual-use infrastructure footprint in its own hemisphere.
By proactively engaging in the Latin America’s evolving space and infrastructure landscape, Washington can safeguard its homeland security interests, counter covert threats, and ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains a domain of open cooperation rather than opaque competition.