Amid escalating trade and tech war between the US and China, an unlikely rivalry is brewing in the critical area of satellite navigation (SatNav). The BeiDou satellite navigation system, China’s answer to the American GPS, is cementing its leading position in the home market and rapidly replacing the GPS on Chinese mobile devices.
BeiDou, named after the seven bright northern stars used for navigation in ancient China, generated a total of 575.8 billion yuan (US$79.9 billion) in economic output in 2024, a 7.39 percent year-on-year increase, according to data published by the GNSS and LBS Association of China.
China’s home-grown satellite navigation system is now compatible with 288 million smartphones, most of which are produced by Chinese smartphone manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi. It was used to track locations more than 1 trillion times every day.
According to the LBS Association, users in China also use BeiDou to travel over 4 billion kilometers daily.
To further strengthen its position in the home market, BeiDou is expanding its compatibility from smartphones and in-vehicle satellite navigation systems to wearables, drones, electric bikes, and even robots, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
However, BeiDou’s impressive growth in the domestic market is also due to various restrictions imposed on the GPS in China.
“America’s GPS in China is now either not supported on some domestically made devices or deliberately not used due to security reasons, especially when a government agency, state-owned enterprise or military unit needs navigation services or extra-precise mapping,” an academic at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, who declined to be identified due to privacy concerns, was quoted as saying by the SCMP.
“Foreign companies face certain restrictions on collecting high-precision mapping data in China, but many smartphones like iPhones support both GPS and BeiDou, automatically selecting the best signal,” he added.
Apart from land navigation, Chinese businesses also use BeiDou for maritime navigation. The system has proven useful for China’s growing merchant navy.
Almost all Chinese vessels, including the shipping giant Cosco, have switched from GPS to BeiDou, or are using both.
BeiDou’s Global Ambitions
After cementing its leading position in the home market, BeiDou now has global ambitions and aims to counter GPS’s decades-long dominating position in overseas markets.
China believes the adoption of BeiDou in foreign countries will enhance Beijing’s soft power. Along with China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China is also pushing for the adoption of BeiDou for navigation purposes.
“Beijing may couple the navigation network to Chinese investments in infrastructure like ports and railways in developing countries. By subsidising the pricing and integrating it with other Chinese technologies, services, and products, this strategy can increase foreign adoption and tech dependency on China,” Michael Shin, from the University of California, Los Angeles, told SCMP.
According to the China Satellite Navigation Office, BeiDou’s signals are readily available across Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Their user base is mostly in the agriculture, transport, and infrastructure sectors.
Additionally, BeiDou claims that the system is in extensive commercial use for port management in Pakistan, land planning and river transport in Myanmar, precision agriculture and pest control in Laos, urban planning in Brunei, and maritime patrols in Indonesia.
BeiDou Vs GPS
Many experts believe BeiDou has already surpassed GPS in terms of the number of satellites, signal strength, and its positioning accuracy in many areas.
BeiDou already has 56 satellites in orbit, nearly twice as many as the 31 GPS satellites. Additionally, the BeiDou constellation is newer, whereas the GPS constellation is still using satellites from the 1990s.
The BeiDou constellation is also supported by nearly ten times as many monitoring stations around the world than GPS does. As a result, BeiDou’s accuracy is much better in many places.
BeiDou can achieve positioning accuracy within one meter for public use and even one centimeter for military use, while standard GPS typically provides accuracy within 3 meters.
In a recent paper published by Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, “China’s BeiDou: New Dimensions of Great Power Competition,” Sarah Sewall, executive vice president for strategic issues at IQT and co-authors Tyler Vandenburg and Kaj Malden argued that BeiDou has achieved technical superiority over GPS in many areas.
“In several regions of the world, BeiDou and its supporting ground infrastructure provide the most accessible and accurate PNT (Positioning, Navigation, and Timing) data of any operating GNSS constellation,” their research paper argued.
Nikkei Asia claimed in 2020 that BeiDou “eclipses” GPS in 165 countries.
However, GPS has the advantage of being an early mover. People have been using GPS for many years now, and many of them might not switch to a new system even if it is more efficient.
Also, GPS is deeply integrated with other American technologies and applications.
The Splintering Of SatNav & A New Geopolitical Frontier
In the paper “China’s BeiDou: New Dimensions of Great Power Competition,” Sewall argued that China seeks to utilize Beidou to gain a global geopolitical advantage that will hurt US interests.
“The United States and its international partners should evaluate more closely the effects of global reliance upon BeiDou and associated infrastructure and products. Such reliance may increase states’ vulnerability to the Chinese government in ways that negatively affect U.S. interests and those of its democratic allies,” Sewall warned in the paper.
Experts warn that the system can also be used for surveillance purposes, which adds a security dimension to China’s export of technologies, such as BeiDou.
Although technologies like SatNav have become integral to the daily lives of millions of people worldwide, they are also a geopolitical frontier with security implications and are witnessing intense competition for market share.
China started developing its own satellite navigation system to reduce its technological reliance on the US. Beijing was also concerned that in a war situation, Washington can cut out China’s access to these technologies, crippling its military operations.
Notably, SatNav also has numerous military applications and is widely used in guided munitions and guided missiles.
That is why we are witnessing a splintering of the global navigation system, with many countries developing their own satellite navigation systems.
Apart from China, the European Union (EU) has developed its Galileo, Russia has its GLONASS, and India is working on NavIC.
What we are witnessing in China —the near-total replacement of GPS by a homegrown satellite navigation system —can be replicated in many other countries in the coming years.
The global battle for SatNav, it seems, is just heating up.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
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