US-China tech war: China’s GPS rival BeiDou poised to support industry worth US$156 billion by 2025

The BeiDou satellite navigation industry is growing at an average annual rate of 20 per cent, said Xinhua

China has been pushing for the adoption of BeiDou as an alternative to the US-owned GPS

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A model of Chinese BeiDou Navigation Satellite System is displayed during the 12th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai city, Guangdong province, on November 7, 2018. Photo: AP Photo

Published: 5:30pm, 27 May 2021Updated: 5:30pm, 27 May 2021

The value of China’s BeiDou satellite navigation industry is estimated to be worth 1 trillion yuan (US$156 billion) by 2025, according to state news agency Xinhua, as the country continues to seek alternatives to US technology.

China’s satellite navigation industry was worth more than 400 billion yuan by 2020, growing at an average annual rate of 20 per cent, according to a Xinhua report on Wednesday, citing Yang Jun, deputy director of China Satellite Navigation Office, at an industry conference hosted in the southeastern Jiangxi province.

China officially commissioned its BeiDou-3 System (BDS) last July at a ceremony attended by President Xi Jinping. As Beijing continues to invest in efforts to become a space power, it hopes BeiDou will rival the United States’s GPS and the European Union’s Galileo.

Launched in 1994, China’s BeiDou project was a response to the realisation that the country’s military needed its own satellite navigation system to replace GPS, developed by the US Department of Defence.

In a 1996 incident, which a senior Chinese military official characterised as “an unforgettable humiliation”, the People’s Liberation Army lost track of two missiles fired into the East China Sea as a warning to Taiwan. Analysis later suggested that the failures might have been caused by a sudden disruption of GPS.

Beijing has since invested heavily in BeiDou to ensure independent and reliable satellite navigation for its missiles and guided bombs.

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