China sees outer space and the polar regions as ‘strategic new frontiers’ vital to its future security – and is investing accordingly.

In 2003, a decade after the humiliation of the Yinhe incident – when a Chinese container ship was left stranded for weeks after the United States jammed its Global Positioning System (GPS) – Beijing set its sights on bypassing the American satellite network. At first, it turned to the European Union, pledging €230 million (then US$260 million) to join the Galileo project, an independent satellite navigation system designed to reduce Europe’s reliance on GPS. But the partnership did not last…

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