New Delhi: China has deployed a missile and satellite tracking vessel in the Indian Ocean Region again, prompting close monitoring from the Indian Navy.
Yuan Wang-5 is a third-generation Chinese ‘spy’ vessel operated by the Strategic Support Force (SSF), a branch of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
A geo-intelligence and open-source intelligence (OSINT) expert, Damien Symon, affiliated with The Intel Lab, shared satellite images of Yuan Wang-5’s movements on X on Thursday.
The same vessel previously docked at Sri Lanka’s Hambantota, a port leased to China in 2017 as part of Colombo’s debt repayment to Beijing.
Designated initially as a research and survey ship, Yuan Wang-5, built in 2007 at Jiangnan Shipyard, can reportedly monitor missile launches and space vehicles over long distances.
Yuan Wang-5 features meteorological instruments, precise navigation systems, and onboard computing capabilities, permitting the vessel to support both space surveillance and missile telemetry missions.
While PLA-owned, the PLA Navy does not operate the vessel. It is under the control of China’s Strategic Support Force (SSF), the fifth branch of the army, which established the SSF in December 2015.
Yuan Wang 5 is one of four active ships in the Yuan Wang-class, tasked with tracking and supporting satellites and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
China maintains that these vessels are for scientific research. However, Indian and Western authorities have long suspected that Yuan Wang-class vessels have a dual purpose, and one of those is to gather intelligence critical for naval operations, particularly anti-submarine warfare (ASW).
India has previously expressed security concerns over the docking of Yuan Wang-5 at Hambantota. Its purported capability to map the ocean floor could provide China with a strategic advantage in submarine operations.
Moreover, a discernible pattern has emerged of Chinese research and survey vessels entering the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). The vessels pretend that data collection is their purpose, but their IOR travels often coincide with missile tests and other military activities.
Only days ago, India issued a notification for a likely missile test in the Bay of Bengal on 24-25 September.
In May 2025, another Chinese vessel, Da Yang Yi Hao, entered the Bay of Bengal via the Malacca Strait. That ship had been flagged for monitoring missile tests, naval vessels, and other installations, as well.
Furthermore, in August 2024, ThePrint had reported that three other Chinese research vessels, Xiang Yang Hong 03, Zhong Shan Da Xue, and Ying Wang 7, were operating in the IOR and were being tracked by the Indian Navy.
A 2021 note by the Indian Navy, following a November 2020 ThePrint report on two Chinese research and survey vessels in Sri Lankan waters, suggested that vessels that start from China are part of a wide intelligence-gathering effort by the country.
The Indian Navy had then cautioned that such activity “within Sri Lankan waters will surely raise the hackles of other nations in the region and has the potential to upset the delicate maritime balance in the IOR”.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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