China is ready to turn out to be a significant participant within the “highly lucrative” satellite tv for pc navigation market, because it seeks to compete with the U.S. government-owned Global Positioning System (GPS), an analyst stated Monday.
But China’s homegrown Beidou system is just not prone to overtake the GPS system for now, stated Craig Singleton, adjunct fellow on the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“China has marked a major step in its race to increase market share in this highly lucrative sector,” Singleton instructed CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
“The completion of the system also reaffirms China’s status as a world power. It represents a major declaration about its technical independence from the West, which carries wide-ranging geopolitical implications,” stated Singleton.
Flags of the U.S. and China fly alongside Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 17, 2011.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
More than 120 nations — together with Pakistan and Thailand — are utilizing China’s Beidou system for functions similar to monitoring visitors at ports or guiding rescue operations, the analyst stated.
And Beijing is relying on its huge Belt and Road Initiative to “convince” extra nations to make use of Beidou, he added.
The Beidou system was completed in June last year. Chinese state media Xinhua said last week that the worth of Beidou-related industries will exceed 1 trillion yuan ($157.1 billion) by 2025.
‘Bifurcated world’
Singleton stated Beidou’s completion has rekindled considerations amongst some within the West concerning the privateness and safety of Chinese expertise. He defined that some individuals concern Beijing may use its expertise to trace people, similar to dissidents or democracy activists.
Such considerations have come as U.S.-China competitors heats up within the expertise area. The U.S. below former President Donald Trump launched export controls on a number of Chinese tech firms, together with telecommunications tools maker Huawei and prime chipmaker SMIC, or Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp.
President Joe Biden has kept many Trump-era restrictions on Chinese firms. Biden is in search of to spice up investments in U.S. analysis and improvement in order that his nation can construct tech capabilities to compete with China.
For now, China’s Beidou system does not seem to threaten the dominance of GPS, stated Singleton.
“At this point, it doesn’t look as if Beidou is going to overcome GPS, but it’s certainly possible that we will see a bifurcated system, bifurcated world between GPS and Beidou in the future,” the analyst stated.
— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.
