I was thinking of the opposite use case -- an American traveling to China for work and getting uncensored internet.

But I mean once a Chinese citizen gets their hands on the equipment, I'm not sure how China would stop them. I suppose they could have roving bands of listening posts looking for the uplink signals.

I'm sure someone could figure out a way to take payments for them. Many rich Chinese citizens already have bank accounts outside of China.

Pretty sure an American company deliberately subverting another nation's laws to make a profit isn't going to be looked well upon, even if it is unjust CCP laws.

Regarding an American traveling to China - I think you're still beholden to the host country's laws, no? You can't break their local laws just because you're from out of town.

Not to mention the punitive actions CCP could take against Tesla (as they try to build out a business there) to put pressure on SpaceX to stop allowing Starlink access in China. That wouldn't be fair either, but Musk is CEO of both organizations and I'm not sure the CCP would distinguish them separately.

SpaceX isn't going to piss off China. The satellites are really just repeaters to the local base station. Starlink will be firewalled off from the world just like the rest of China (when the terminal is in China.)

>I suppose they could have roving bands of listening posts looking for the uplink signals.

I think this is pretty likely.

In the US the FCC has a whole set of systems designed to locate interference sources [1], and I've heard stories that they're extremely good at it. They even have a whole facility in Maryland dedicated to satellite monitoring!

[1] https://www.fcc.gov/over-air-spectrum-observation-capabiliti...