China is the third nation to develop its own satellite
navigation system, after the US and Russia. While it will be open
to the public, analysts worry about its military uses.
Something important was missing from all the fanfare here
surrounding Tuesday’s announcement that China had launched a
homegrown satellite navigation system to rival the US Global
Positioning System (GPS): any mention of what it is really for.
“The driver for this program is that it is a strategic
imperative” for China’s military modernization, says Eric Hagt, an
expert on China’s space activities at the Center for Defense
Information in Washington.
You would not have learned that from the head of the China
Satellite Navigation Office, Ran Chengqi, who announced that the
Beidou system, which means “Big Dipper” in Chinese, had gone
live.
He talked only of civilian uses, such as disaster relief
management, or tracking official vehicles.
The Beidou system, however, is clearly designed to do more than
keep an eye on the government carpool, foreign analysts say. A
sophisticated positional navigation system is essential to pinpoint
enemy ships and to guide missiles with precision, Mr. Hagt points
out. The newly launched system, he adds, “is a guarantee for the
Chinese that they would have an independent system in place” in
case of conflict.
Until now, the Chinese military has relied on GPS. But that is
controlled by the US government, which could block Beijing’s access
if it wanted to, effectively blinding China’s Army, Navy, and Air
Force.
For the moment, the 10 Beidou satellites offer positioning,
navigation, and timing services over most of China and the whole of
Southeast Asia, Mr. Ran said. The launch of six more satellites
next year will extend Beidou’s reach to most of the Asia Pacific
region and improve its accuracy to GPS levels. The system is
expected to go global in 2020.
Tuesday’s announcement makes China the third nation in the world
with its own satellite navigation system, after the US and Russia,
whose Glonass satellites are fully operational. The European Union
plans to make its own Galileo system operational by 2019.
Like GPS, Beidou will be free, Ran says, hoping that Chinese and
foreign companies will build and sell cheap receivers to use its
information. Also like GPS, Beidou is thought to have an encrypted
military channel, offering more precise information to those that
control it, though Ran made no mention of this.
US firms already use GPS alternatives for some purposes; Apple’s
iPhone 4S relies on Glonass as well as GPS for its location
feature, for example. How widely used Beidou will be by civilian
clients, however, is unclear.
“How many people would trust the Chinese over the US or the EU
to keep a public channel open if it was not in their interests?”
Hagt wonders. “I don’t know if people would have the same
confidence.”