BEIJING, March 18 (Reuters) - Chinese military and

state-run media on Sunday accused the United States of

threatening global security, days after a Reuters report which

found Elon Musk's SpaceX was building hundreds of spy satellites

for a U.S. intelligence agency.

SpaceX's Starshield unit is developing the satellite network

under a classified $1.8 billion contract with the National

Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Reuters reported on Friday, citing

five sources familiar with the programme.

A social media account run by the People's Liberation Army

(PLA) said the SpaceX program exposed the United States'

"shamelessness and double standards" as Washington accuses

Chinese tech companies of threatening U.S. security.

"We urge U.S. companies to not help a villain do evil,"

Junzhengping, an account run by the PLA, posted on social media

platform Weibo ( WB ) on Sunday. The account has 1.1 million followers.

"All countries worldwide should be vigilant and protect

against new and even bigger security threats created by the U.S.

government," the post said.

Wang Yanan, chief editor of Aerospace Knowledge, a magazine

overseen by the ruling Communist Party, was quoted in an

interview as saying the SpaceX satellite project posed "a

challenge to global security and stability".

"The United States' high-profile intelligence reconnaissance

of countries or regions it is concerned about will inevitably

cause some hot issues to become more sensitive or even

escalate," Wang told The Global Times, a Chinese

state-controlled newspaper, in an interview published on Sunday.

In response to the Reuters' story, the NRO acknowledged its

mission to develop space-based surveillance systems, but

declined to comment on the extent of SpaceX's involvement.

SpaceX, the world's largest satellite operator, did not

respond to several requests for comment about the contract.

The planned Starshield network is separate from Starlink,

SpaceX's growing commercial broadband constellation that has

about 5,500 satellites in space to provide near-global internet

to consumers, companies and government agencies.

Chinese researchers in the PLA have over the past two years

studied the deployment of Starlink in the war in Ukraine and

repeatedly warned about the risks it poses to China.

China has said it also plans to start building its own

satellite constellations.