China urges US to halt military buildup in space after acknowledgment of orbital weapons

"We urge the US to stop expanding military buildup in outer space and safeguard global strategic stability with concrete actions," Guo said. His remarks came after US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Monday that the Space Force has operational weapons in orbit capable of responding to threats from adversaries.

Read:US, China gear up for mid-September AI safety talks"We continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenge of evolving threats wherever they exist," Meink said at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference. "This is why the Space Force now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action," he added.

Meink, whose department oversees both the US Air Force and Space Force, declined to disclose when the weapons became operational, their capabilities, or whether they rely on kinetic impactors, directed energy, electronic warfare or cyber capabilities. He later acknowledgment was deliberate and that the terminology had been "very well thought out" to reinforce military deterrence.

"Talking about the details of what we're doing would actually not benefit that deterrence," Meink said. “We're not going to talk about the specifics of what we're doing, whether we've tested, not tested, or anything else.

I would just say that the space environment is critical for military and economic security, and we need to make sure that the US can operate freely there.”Read More:How China is preparing for the risk of AI escaping human control"It is critically important that we maintain our dominance, not only in the air but in space," he added.

“So, we've had to take steps to make sure that when we're threatened, we can take care of that.”The disclosure comes amid growing military competition in space involving the US, China and Russia, all of which have developed counter-space capabilities.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits placing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit but does not explicitly ban conventional weapons in space.

Security experts have warned that publicly confirming the deployment of orbital weapons could encourage rival powers to expand their own capabilities, accelerating an arms race in a domain increasingly vital to communications, navigation, intelligence gathering and military operations.