Taiwan in talks with Amazon’s Kuiper on satellite communications amid China fears

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Taiwan’s government is in talks with Amazon’s Project Kuiper subsidiary about co-operating on satellite-based communications, as Taipei broadens its efforts to make its mobile phone and internet infrastructure less vulnerable to a potential Chinese attack.

Wu Cheng-wen, technology minister, told foreign media on Tuesday that the OneWeb network of French satellite operator Eutelsat, which partnered with Taiwan’s state-backed Chunghwa Telecom last year, was falling short in providing sufficient capacity for the country’s needs.

Taipei was now exploring additional international collaboration, Wu said.

“We found that their bandwidth is too small for real applications,” the minister said about OneWeb. “So far as I know, the company is in financial problems at this moment, so they have a [delay] in developing the second generation satellites.

“There are other companies in the Western world, including some from Europe and from North America and Canada, but Amazon Kuiper is the most mature in their development stage so far. So we are discussing with them at this moment if it is possible that we will have a collaboration in the future,” he added.

Asked about Wu’s comments, Eutelsat OneWeb said it was “absolutely not in financial difficulties” and that there was “no delay” in developing the next generation of its constellation, which was progressing as planned.

OneWeb and Kuiper are among the largest of numerous nascent providers of communications services offering or planning networks of satellites in low Earth orbit — the region of space up to about 2,000km above the planet’s surface — in competition to Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Kuiper plans to begin launching its constellation soon, with services from low Earth orbit expected to begin next year.

Eutelsat OneWeb said it was the only LEO network “ready to deliver services in Taiwan” and that it had “the full backing of our shareholders” for its new constellation.

After Russia launched its full invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Taiwan cranked up efforts to become more resilient against what it fears is a growing risk of Chinese aggression. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and threatens to annex it if Taipei refuses to submit to its control indefinitely.

The role that Starlink has played in upholding Ukraine’s wartime communications drove the Taiwanese government to pursue LEO communications as a back-up, in case the undersea cables that support its mobile telephony and internet systems are cut.

Taiwanese government officials said separately that Starlink itself was not an option for them, adding Musk’s company would not agree to a joint venture in which Chunghwa Telecom or another Taiwanese entity held at least 50 per cent, as Taipei demands.

Officials said Musk’s extensive business interests in China and past comments on Taiwan’s political status and future were an additional hurdle.

Musk has repeatedly suggested he takes China’s side in the sovereignty dispute. Last year, he said Taiwan was an integral part of China as claimed by Beijing, adding that it was “arbitrarily” outside Beijing’s control because the US military was blocking unification.

Two years ago, he suggested the conflict be resolved by handing at least partial control of Taiwan to China.

Apart from Chunghwa Telecom’s tie-up with OneWeb, Taiwan’s space agency is also working to develop a national provider with its own low Earth orbit satellite constellation.

Wu said the government aimed to pick a site in south-eastern Taiwan for launching its own rockets, with launches expected to start within five years.

Eutelsat is highly leveraged, with net debt in September totalling four times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. Earlier this year, the group was forced to cut revenue guidance for 2024 and 2025 because of uncertainty over the outlook for OneWeb.

Amazon and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Additional reporting by Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu in London