China’s geospatial influence is expanding at an astonishing pace, leveraging satellites, digital infrastructure, and even cartography as instruments of strategic power. Beijing’s investments in navigation systems and mapping narratives highlight an ambitious effort to define the terms of engagement on land, at sea, and in space. China’s geospatial influence has proliferated rapidly, alarming defense planners. China’s BeiDou satellite network now rivals or surpasses U.S. GPS in reach and precision, its territorial maps claim sovereignty that exceeds internationally recognized borders, and its Earth-observation satellites encompass the globe with eyes in the sky. This expansion is supported by the Digital Silk Road—a network of technology and infrastructure extending Chinese geospatial control. For Indo-Pacific security, the implications are significant: if conflict arises, China’s unilateral geospatial advantage could skew the balance in its favor.
Table of Contents
- China’s BeiDou Network and Exit from U.S. GPS Dependence
- Mapping Sovereignty: Cartographic Aggression in the South China Sea
- Earth Observation and Chinese Commercial Satellite Expansion
- The Digital Silk Road: Infrastructure and Geospatial Control
- Strategic Influence Through Free Data and Dependency
- Conclusion: A Battle of Maps, Networks, and Influence
China’s BeiDou Network and Exit from U.S. GPS Dependence
China’s drive for geospatial autonomy and influence is perhaps best exemplified by its BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, which liberates Beijing from reliance on the U.S.-run GPS. Over the past two decades, BeiDou has grown from a regional experiment into a 56-satellite constellation, nearly twice the size of GPS. This larger constellation offers better positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) coverage, especially in regions historically underserved by GPS, such as parts of Africa and Southeast Asia. A 2023 U.S. advisory board concluded that China’s BeiDou capabilities significantly exceeded those of U.S. GPS. Such milestones underscore how far Beijing has come in ending its GPS dependence and establishing technological supremacy in satellite navigation.
Behind this achievement lies a clear strategic motive. BeiDou is not just a civilian convenience but a military asset integrated with the PRC’s military communications and precision-guided munitions since at least 2014. By fielding its system, China ensures its missiles and forces won’t go blind if GPS is cut off during conflict. Analysts note that BeiDou could insulate the PRC and partner countries in a U.S. conflict scenario while enabling China’s counterspace operations. If war were to break out in the Indo-Pacific, Chinese troops and missiles would still have reliable positioning, whereas adversaries might face denied or degraded signals. This has enhanced China’s strategic autonomy, eliminating a critical vulnerability of relying on U.S.-controlled GPS.
Beijing has also actively internationalized BeiDou to extend China’s global geospatial influence. By signing agreements with numerous countries, including Pakistan, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, and many across Africa, China is encouraging foreign militaries and industries to adopt BeiDou receivers. It has even inked an interoperability deal with the United States to make switching to BeiDou easier, a strategy that gradually diminishes GPS dominance by reducing barriers to entry for BeiDou. The payoff is significant: 85% of the world’s capitals are now observed more frequently by BeiDou satellites than by GPS. Nikkei Asia reports BeiDou eclipses GPS in 165 countries regarding satellite coverage. An extensive network of ground monitoring stations reinforces this global reach. China operates over ten times as many monitoring stations as GPS, and many are in developing nations that welcomed Beijing’s technology. These ground stations boost BeiDou’s accuracy for local users, potentially giving China local data access and leverage.
Finally, China continues to innovate its satellite navigation capabilities. It plans to test a next-gen BeiDou by 2027 with more precise, real-time navigation, aiming for completion by 2035. It explores augmentation with low-Earth orbit satellites and exotic technologies like quantum navigation. President Xi Jinping lauded BeiDou’s third-generation satellites as one of the important Chinese achievements in the past 40 years, reflecting the system’s prestige. For Beijing, dominating the PNT domain is a cornerstone of great-power status. And through BeiDou’s success, China is securing its own forces in a future Indo-Pacific clash and weaving a web of geospatial dependency that can draw other nations under China’s influence.
Mapping Sovereignty: Cartographic Aggression in the South China Sea
Maps are never just maps in geopolitics—they are assertions of reality. Nowhere is this more evident than in China’s cartographic campaigns in the South China Sea (SCS). For decades, Beijing has published official maps with a sweeping U-shaped boundary, the infamous nine-dash line, looping around almost the entire SCS. First drawn by China’s Nationalist government in the 1930s and adopted by the PRC after 1949, this nebulous line is a classic case of cartographic aggression: using maps to legitimize territorial claims far exceeding recognized limits. The nine-dash line encompasses tens of thousands of square miles of sea and hundreds of rocks and reefs claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan. It is a passive cartographic aggression—a line on paper that signals maximalist ambitions.
Over time, China has treated the nine-dash line as a national boundary. Internally, school atlases and state media routinely show the South China Sea enclosed by this line, instilling the belief that these waters are historically China’s. Externally, Beijing has pressed international companies and countries to use its version of the map, punishing those who don’t. This mapping strategy ran headlong into international law in 2016, when a tribunal in The Hague unanimously struck down China’s dash-line claims as having no legal basis under the UNCLOS. China firmly dismissed that ruling and reaffirmed its stance.
In August 2023, the Ministry of Natural Resources in China published a new standard map that added a tenth dash to the line, extending it to envelop waters east of Taiwan. The same map also provocatively included India’s Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet, in Beijing’s terms) and the disputed Aksai Chin plateau within China’s borders, as well as Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island on the Sino-Russian border.
The reaction across Asia was swift and negative. The Philippines promptly condemned the 2023 map and reiterated that the arbitral tribunal ruling is final—the dashed line has no validity. Malaysia issued a rebuke reasserting its rights under UNCLOS, since the new map encroached on Malaysia’s EEZ off Borneo. Vietnam protested and restated its claims to the Paracel and Spratly Islands. Even ordinarily cautious Indonesia reminded China to respect UNCLOS. India lodged a strong objection, given that the map showed Indian territory as Chinese. Perhaps most tellingly, Russia, a strategic partner of China, distanced itself: Moscow stated that the border issues were long settled and minimized the map, indicating it changed nothing on the ground and implicitly rejecting Beijing’s newly drawn boundary near their territory. However, Russia’s mild tone underscored its dependency on China, as it refrained from outright criticism.
Chinese officials attempted to soothe the outcry with calculated ambiguity. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin insisted the new map was a routine annual update and urged everyone to avoid over-interpreting the changes. He claimed China’s position is consistent and clear—a paradoxical defense of the changes. This rhetoric mirrors a broader stealthy compliance strategy: Beijing balances domestic nationalist pressure to assert its claims with external pressure to appear lawful. China pushes the envelope while feigning innocence by publishing an expansive map but couching it as routine.
Strategically, such map warfare serves multiple purposes. Beijing often unveils new boundary claims ahead of significant summits, such as releasing its 2023 map days before the G20 in India, to throw rivals off balance or to use as a distraction in negotiations. It’s a gray-zone tactic, legally dubious but falling short of kinetic action, aimed at incrementally normalizing outrageous claims. Every time the world over-interprets and protests, China shifts the Overton window of acceptable discourse a bit further in its favor. More ominously, these cartographic forays hint at real force: each cartographic aggression signals more forceful expansions to come. Indeed, alongside its maps, China has constructed military outposts on reclaimed reefs that destroyed coral ecosystems, harassed foreign vessels with water cannons and laser pointers on Philippine resupply ships, and tailed U.S. Navy transits with dangerous maneuvers.
For the Indo-Pacific defense community, China’s cartographic aggression serves as a warning. Control of the narrative—whose map is accepted—can translate to control of territory without a shot fired. If the world acquiesces to a Chinese-drawn map, it would effectively cede sovereignty in the South China Sea to Beijing by default. Conversely, pushing back against false maps is more than a semantic issue; it’s part of denying an aggressor the pretext for expansion. The United States acknowledges this. In response to the 2023 ten-dash map, the U.S. State Department rejected the unlawful maritime claims it depicted, calling on China to conform to international law and the 2016 tribunal ruling. Washington’s statement aligned with the chorus of regional protests, reinforcing the message that lines on a Chinese map do not change reality. Ultimately, China’s battle of maps is a contest of will and legitimacy. As long as Beijing pursues unilateral map-making to assert dominance, tensions will persist and likely worsen in the Indo-Pacific.
Earth Observation and Chinese Commercial Satellite Expansion
If control of navigation and maps represents one front in this geospatial proxy war, control of observation—the ability to see the battlefield, the globe, from space—is another. China has been rapidly closing the gap with the U.S. Over the past decade, China’s fleet of Earth observation satellites has multiplied, blurring the line between state-owned eyes in the sky and a burgeoning commercial space sector expanding the geospatial influence of Beijing. The result is that China now operates hundreds of imaging satellites, ranging from high-resolution optical imagers to radar and hyperspectral satellites, providing near-continuous coverage of the Earth’s surface. This growth in quantity is matched by leaps in quality and innovation, bolstering China’s ability to monitor its own territory and far-flung regions of interest.
Recent Developments
China’s China High-resolution Earth Observation System (CHEOS) continues to accelerate, adding new Gaofen, or “high resolution,” satellites. Beijing launched its fifth Gaofen-11 satellite in July 2024 and its fifth Gaofen-12 satellite in October 2024, bringing the total to over 30 operational Gaofen satellites with optical, multispectral, hyperspectral, and SAR payloads in CHEOS. While China asserts these satellites are for civilian uses, the lack of details on later satellite specifications and the Chinese National Intelligence Law indicate they are used by the military.
Notably, China deployed Ludi Tance-4, the world’s first SAR satellite in geostationary orbit, which can constantly watch a fixed area. Chinese commercial companies have deployed constellations like Jilin-1 with video and imagery satellites, and PIESAT-2 SAR microsatellites to provide all-weather imaging services. The data from these constellations can be integrated into China’s military intelligence or shared with friendly nations, broadening Beijing’s vision. The U.S. Department of Defense has identified China’s persistent satellite coverage as an escalating threat, as the PLA’s enhanced reconnaissance capabilities could potentially target U.S. ships and bases with greater range and frequency than ever before.
Equally significant is the rise of China’s state-guided private space firms focusing on Earth observation. Beijing has fostered an ecosystem of space startups and spinoffs from state agencies. By 2022, over 430 commercial space enterprises were operating in China, including 43 companies dedicated to building satellite constellations for communications, remote sensing, or navigation.
This ecosystem has been growing at 22% annually and is projected to reach a staggering $900 billion value by 2029. While these firms are dubbed “commercial,” most have deep state ties and funding. The Chinese model effectively blurs public and private sector efforts: startups bring agility and innovation, but strategic alignment is ensured through state investment and oversight.
The fruits of this model are evident. Changguang Satellite Technology, for instance, now operates dozens of Jilin-series imaging satellites, providing high-revisit imagery commercially. Another firm, SpaceWill, markets sub-meter imagery internationally at low cost, undercutting Western providers. Still others, like Spacety, focus on SAR smallsats. China is populating the skies with its own orbital eyes at a rate second only to the United States.
This expansion has direct strategic effects. In any regional crisis or conflict, China can draw upon its dense network of satellites to obtain real-time intelligence, track naval movements, map troop deployments, or guide missiles to targets. No longer must Beijing rely on foreign commercial imagery or risk blind spots; it has self-reliance in space-based intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR).
By exporting satellites and imagery services, China gains influence. Beijing has built and launched satellites for countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, often as turnkey projects or even gifts. For example, in December 2023, a satellite assembled at Egypt’s new space facility was launched, although a Reuters investigation revealed the parts, expertise, and assembly were predominantly Chinese.
Under such partnerships, recipient nations get valuable space capabilities, but China gains partners beholden to its technology and data flows, often including ground stations on their soil. China has forged nearly two dozen space cooperation pacts with African nations, supplying everything from satellites to telescopes and training. This helps those countries with development and monitoring, but it also gives China more eyes on the skies in regions where U.S. presence is waning.
Earth observation is not just about pictures, it’s about data control. China is investing heavily in Big Earth Data analytics, using AI to process vast imagery streams for insights on crop yields, disaster response, and military targeting. It has even launched the SDGSAT-1, which supports U.N. sustainable development goals, as a soft-power play. China’s commanders will benefit from a fused, real-time picture from space, providing a crucial edge in a future Indo-Pacific flashpoint. Countries reliant on foreign imagery might find Chinese companies ready to provide “free” or cheap imagery, subtly weaving a dependency. The grand outcome is that Beijing is steadily moving toward parity with U.S. space-based ISR. In the commercial realm, it’s building a parallel market that could challenge Western dominance in satellite data.
The Digital Silk Road: Infrastructure and Geospatial Control
Satellites in space represent just one aspect of China’s geospatial influence strategy. Equally important is the ground-based infrastructure that supports and makes use of those satellites, and this is where China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR) initiative becomes relevant.
The DSR, a Belt and Road Initiative component, is Beijing’s ambitious program to export digital infrastructure worldwide, from fiber-optic networks and 5G to data centers, smart city systems, and space infrastructure. Through these projects, China is not just building roads and ports; it’s creating a geospatial framework in partner countries that can increase China’s influence and potentially control critical data.
A prime example is the expansion of BeiDou ground infrastructure and space-monitoring stations under the DSR. A key part of making BeiDou attractive is installing ground reference stations worldwide to enhance its accuracy for local users. China has been actively doing this, with at least 11 sub-Saharan African nations hosting Chinese BeiDou Continuously Operating Reference Stations, and countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Myanmar authorizing installations.
These seemingly benign installations serve dual purposes. They improve navigation precision for everyone in the host country, a selling point for agriculture, transportation, and more. But they also represent Chinese-built infrastructure on foreign soil, often connected to China’s networks. Similar to the risks from telecommunications infrastructure, satellite ground stations give China a foothold in the host’s positioning system. China is creating a global Space Silk Road of navigational aids that strengthen BeiDou’s coverage while tying other nations’ navigation reliance to Beijing.
Beyond navigation, China is helping countries build their own space facilities. With a catch. Reuters recently uncovered how a modern satellite assembly center in Cairo, touted as Africa’s first indigenous satellite factory, is primarily operated by Chinese personnel using Chinese-supplied parts. The satellite produced there and launched in 2023 was officially Egyptian-made, but it was built mainly in China.
Similar patterns are seen in Nigeria, Pakistan, and other BRI participants: Chinese state-owned enterprises like CASC and CAST construct ground stations, launch satellites for these countries, and often include Chinese monitoring centers or engineers on-site. In Africa alone, Beijing has signed nearly 200 intergovernmental space cooperation agreements with more than 50 countries and international organizations, establishing a presence that ranges from Algeria’s space center to a satellite ground station in Djibouti, to donated satellite data for Kenya.
Host nations often welcome these projects as leaps in technology and development. However, they also extend China’s geospatial control. Beijing can access raw data from these facilities, or even use them to task its satellites for intelligence gathering. The secretive overseas space program indicates China is methodically positioning assets abroad to enhance its global surveillance and communications reach.
For defense strategists, recognizing the DSR’s geostrategic impact is crucial. It’s not just economics; it’s about who owns the digital high ground. China’s geospatial influence via infrastructure may shape alignments in a future crisis: nations deeply embedded in China’s digital silk road might hesitate to oppose Beijing, fearing the loss of vital services. Thus, the battle for influence is being fought with fiber optics and ground antennas as much as with fighter jets and destroyers.
Strategic Influence Through Free Data and Dependency
One of China’s shrewdest tactics in expanding its geospatial reach is providing free or low-cost data and services, cultivating dependency, goodwill, and influence simultaneously. This strategy parallels Beijing’s approach of underbidding competitors through state-backed funding in telecommunications, infrastructure, and energy sectors, gaining a foothold and influence. By positioning itself as a generous provider of public goods—be it satellite imagery for disaster relief or free access to navigation signals and mapping tools—Beijing advances its strategic agenda under the veneer of altruism. This strategy can be summed up simply: win friends with free data today, win leverage for tomorrow.
Consider satellite imagery and remote sensing data. China has made headlines by opening up data from certain satellites for global use. In 2022, it announced that the Sustainable Development Science Satellite (SDGSAT-1) would offer free data worldwide to aid research on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals. This satellite provides multispectral and thermal images aimed at environmental and social applications. By sharing SDGSAT-1 data openly, China gains a public relations boost, positioning itself as a responsible stakeholder helping poorer countries monitor climate change, urban growth, or natural disasters.
Similarly, Chinese researchers have released free global datasets like a 30-meter resolution global land cover map for 2020, filling a gap for countries that lack the resources to produce such maps. These efforts mirror Western open-data programs such as the EU’s Copernicus, but importantly, they familiarize international users with Chinese data sources and platforms.
There’s also the aspect of satellite-based aid in emergencies. China’s participation in the The International Charter: Space and Major Disasters is another aspect of it’s geospatial influence campaign, providing imagery after earthquakes or floods. It often publicizes how Gaofen satellite images are dispatched to help countries hit by disasters. This not only earns goodwill but subtly markets Chinese capabilities. When nations consider which satellite service to rely on regularly for agriculture or maritime monitoring, they may lean toward those who helped them in crisis.
Another dimension is navigation services. While GPS and BeiDou are free for basic use globally, China has added incentives to BeiDou adoption. One unique feature of BeiDou is its short message service, allowing users with BeiDou devices to send texts via satellite. This is useful for fishermen or remote communities outside the cell range. China distributed thousands of free BeiDou terminals to fishermen in the South China Sea, enabling them to call for help or report information even when other communications fail and, incidentally, keeping them connected to Chinese maritime authorities.
Free devices such as these not only improve safety; they tether those users to BeiDou. In an emergency, China can broadcast messages on BeiDou to all regional users, a powerful tool if it wants to warn civilian vessels away from a naval operation. By ensuring that neighbors’ civilian sectors integrate BeiDou for everyday uses, Beijing creates a sphere of dependency where turning off BeiDou in wartime could cripple those countries’ navigation and communication.
China also leverages education and training to entrench its geospatial systems. Through the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization (APSCO) and bilateral programs, China offers scholarships to engineers from developing countries to learn remote sensing in Chinese institutes. It provides free software such as the BeiDou Open Service Software, and cheap or free licenses to Chinese GIS platforms. These efforts mean that government technicians are being trained on Chinese mapping platforms, using Chinese data formats, creating a lock-in effect in many places.
China’s altruism masks Beijing’s strategic intent. Reuters’ special report on China’s space in Africa highlighted that China publicly donates satellites and data but quietly pursues its surveillance goals. For example, Beijing gave Nigeria a high-resolution Earth observation satellite after Nigeria’s own satellite failed, a generous move, but one that potentially gave China access to the satellite’s data and Nigerian airspace. The long-term play: if African countries rely on Chinese data for crop monitoring, climate analysis, or security, to include Chinese surveillance drones reliant on BeiDou, their critical decisions will be shaped by Chinese-provided information. That influence is hard to quantify but essential. It’s a soft power that can become a hard power advantage in diplomacy.
Finally, consider mapping apps and services. Globally, Google Maps and Apple Maps dominate, but China has been pushing its alternatives like Baidu Maps and AliCloud’s mapping services into BRI countries. Some developing cities use Chinese map services to support urban planning. Often, these are provided free or at low cost, undercutting Western contractors, with Chinese engineers doing the heavy lifting of mapping roads and addresses. It solves a problem for the city, but the resulting map database is often hosted on Chinese servers or maintained by Chinese firms. This means updates, technical support, and even day-to-day functionality could be subject to Chinese policies. If a political rift occurs, that city might find its map service unsupported or geofenced.
China’s free data for influence strategy fosters a growing cohort of states and organizations that rely on Chinese geospatial inputs. China’s initial generosity can result in long-term dependence. Dependency translates into leverage: Beijing could, at its discretion, demand political concessions under the implicit threat of withdrawing support or access. Alternatively, it may not even need to threaten; the mere fact that a country’s critical systems are built on Chinese technology could discourage that country from opposing China’s interests. It’s a subtle power but a potent one.
Conclusion: A Battle of Maps, Networks, and Influence
In the Indo-Pacific today, a conflict is underway in the intangible realm of geospatial power. A battle of maps, networks, and influence that will help determine tomorrow’s strategic balance. China’s expansive efforts—deploying its satellite navigation to challenge GPS, redrawing maps to legitimize disputed claims, blanketing the Earth with observation satellites, and wiring the world with its Digital Silk Road—are a comprehensive campaign to shape the world’s geospatial reality in its favor. This geospatial proxy war is subtler than fighter jets scrambling or warships clashing, yet its outcome could decisively tip any future Indo-Pacific conflict.
For the United States and its allies, the challenge is not just to recognize China’s geospatial influence for what it is, but to actively counter it. This involves insisting on truth in maps and resisting the mapping of global commons as a fait accompli. It requires ensuring that no nation relies on Beijing’s satellites to navigate its ships or forecast the weather. It entails investing in resilience, so that if Chinese hackers attempt to blind skies or if Chinese signals saturate the airwaves, the U.S. and its partners can persevere. Above all, it underscores the understanding that sovereignty now has a geospatial dimension: control of one’s data, one’s piece of the electromagnetic spectrum, and one’s narrative of territorial rights.
We’ve seen real-life examples that highlight these risks. The 10-dash line marked on a Chinese map ignites diplomatic outrage because it represents more than mere ink on paper. It signals the potential for Coast Guard ships to enter another nation’s waters. A rising fleet of Chinese satellites over Africa provides valuable imagery while imposing new conditions. A freely given BeiDou device to a fisherman might someday provide targeting data during a conflict or could become unresponsive at a critical moment if Beijing chooses to disable it. These situations are no longer theoretical; they are occurring before our eyes.
In the event of war, the Indo-Pacific would not only be contested at sea, in the air, and in cyberspace, but also in the positioning, navigation, and timing that connects all those domains. Imagine a future maritime clash: whose map is the world seeing on the news: China’s or an objective one? Whose satellites are guiding the missiles? Can the U.S. trust its GPS, or is it being spoofed by BeiDou signals? Can an ally rely on its radar imagery, or have hacks compromised it at Chinese-supplied ground stations? Such questions no longer belong to science fiction; they belong in war rooms and policy planning.
There is, however, cause for measured optimism. The growing awareness of China’s geospatial gambit has spurred international pushback. Countries are collaborating—from the Quad’s maritime domain monitoring to global legal challenges against Chinese map claims. Technology is a two-way street: Western innovations in small satellites, commercial remote sensing, and even nascent quantum navigation can level the playing field. And importantly, many nations do not want to be trapped in any provider’s web. There is a hunger for open, interoperable, and trustworthy alternatives to what China offers.
In the end, maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific will also require keeping the geospatial commons free and open. The battle of maps is about legitimacy and law. The battle of networks—satellites and data—is about access and autonomy. Losing either battle could lead Beijing to a peaceful victory before physical confrontation occurs. Conversely, meeting this challenge head-on through unity, innovation, and principled stance will ensure that no matter how aggressively China tries to redraw maps or reroute networks, the world can keep its bearings.
China has demonstrated its understanding of the adage knowledge is power, specifically regarding geospatial intelligence. It is now the defense community’s responsibility to ensure that no single entity monopolizes this power. The maps of the future and the satellites that inform them must be governed by an order in which might does not make right. As we stand at this crossroads, one thing is clear: China’s geospatial influence will continue to expand, and so must our determination to balance and counter it. The battle is on, even if it remains hidden, and the side that prevails may shape the strategic landscape of the 21st century.
