Reference News Network, November 13 report: The Hong Kong South China Morning Post website published an article titled "China's Ambitious Goals in Space and the Arctic" on November 12. The author is Mia Nurmatov. The content is translated as follows:

In 2003, China began to seek to bypass the U.S. satellite positioning system. Initially, China cooperated with the European Union to join the Galileo project, but this partnership did not last. As a result, China developed its own satellite network: the Beidou Navigation Satellite System. It is currently China's dominant navigation system, with a daily positioning volume of nearly 10 billion times.

This independent and self-reliant process reflects a broader national effort: China's determination to maintain national security by mastering key technologies that were previously controlled by other countries.

This goal is driving China to rapidly expand its presence in a series of emerging fields: from the seabed to the Arctic Circle, and even into outer space.

Beijing's ambitions continue to grow. In the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), China emphasizes manned spaceflight, lunar exploration, deep-sea engineering, supercomputing, and quantum information, and calls for forward-looking thinking, overall planning, and strategic layout.

The newly released proposal for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) goes further. It explicitly mentions the need to accelerate the construction of a "space power." This highlights China's growing confidence in its ability to become a global leader in space exploration. Li Hanming, an American aviation analyst, said that China's space technology is now among the world's most advanced.

He said that the Beidou network has become one of the four global satellite navigation systems, along with the U.S. Global Positioning System, Russia's GLONASS, and Europe's Galileo. China's space station is also comparable in level to the International Space Station.

China's commercial space industry is also gaining momentum. The private aerospace company Blue Arrow Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd. is conducting final tests on vertical return technology for reusable rockets. Its breakthroughs will enable China to conduct more frequent launches at lower costs.

Reusable rockets are a technology pioneered by SpaceX, and China's potential to master this technology has drawn attention from both sides of the Pacific. A report issued by Oriental Securities in October stated that this will allow China to accelerate the deployment of low-orbit satellites.

China is also building several low-orbit constellations, similar to SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet system, with its main project named "Thousand Sails Constellation."

China has also made significant progress in another area—the polar regions.

In October this year, China announced that the polar research vessel "Exploration III" had completed its latest mission in the Arctic Ocean. According to the People's Daily, this indicates that China has become the only country in the world currently conducting continuous manned deep dives in the dense sea ice areas of the Arctic. This research vessel is part of China's expanding polar footprint. China has established multiple polar research stations.

The private sector in China is also playing a role. The Chinese polar cruise operator "66 Degrees Expeditions," established last year, made its first voyage from Aberdeen, UK, in May this year.

Charles Austin Jordan, a senior research analyst with the China team at Rhodium Group, said that currently, many people in the United States and Europe still hold a very optimistic view that the West leads China in developing cutting-edge technologies, but this confidence is more fragile than before.

He said, "This sentiment will change quickly. Even modest progress by China, especially in artificial intelligence or quantum computing, could soon trigger serious anxiety."

However, Chinese experts say that concerns about China's activities are exaggerated. They emphasize that for Beijing, investment in these strategic areas cannot simply be seen as a matter of geopolitical competition, but more as a way to enhance national resilience.

A professor at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, who studies artificial intelligence, robotics, and intelligent sensors, said that China's efforts in space and deep-sea exploration are at least partly driven by the desire to develop key basic technologies.

He said, "Achieving breakthroughs in these areas means China has reduced its dependence on foreign countries on core technologies. Ensuring technological autonomy in key areas such as semiconductors, energy, deep-sea exploration, and space has become the cornerstone of national security."

He also said, "Some anxieties in the West reflect a vigilance toward the shift in the global balance of power. But demonizing China's technological development purely as a geopolitical challenge is overly simplistic and misleading." (Translated by Lin Zhaohui)

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7572116864906609162/

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