GNSS & THE LAW STATE OF PLAY IN CHINA Strategy, Governance, Policy, and Law of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System he BeiDou Navigation Satel- as a space infrastructure of national lite System (BDS) is China’s significance to offer two basic services: contribution to the world in an open service free of charge and an the domain of Global Satel- authorized service with higher quality Tlite Navigation System (GNSS). The and integrity. At the current stage, appli- BDS is being developed by the Chinese cations based on the BDS are gradually government, mainly through military penetrating to every corner of people’s departments, with key considerations lives and economic activities in the Asia- for China’s national security, economic Pacific Region, particularly for meteoro- interests and social progress. logical observation, transport manage- After decades of development, the ment and search & rescue. BDS has been recognized as one of the four big players in the field of GNSS. Strategy of the BDS Development China has also started the development Bearing in mind the mature technol- of a comprehensive positioning, navi- ogy and the policy of free access to open gation and timing (PNT) system with signals provided by GPS, many ques- enough capabilities for air, sea, land, tions arose about why China should underground and underwater terminals, make substantive efforts to develop its and the BDS is designed as the most own GNSS. However, in addition to the important component. economic benefits created by the navi- From a structural point of view, the gation industry, developing a domesti- BDS is similar to the other GNSSs and cally controlled GNSS was considered as composed of the satellite constellation, a national security advantage. distributed ground facilities — includ- Back in 1996 when the third Taiwan ing master control stations, uplink sta- Strait Crisis started, two Chinese mis- tions, and monitoring stations — and siles failed to reach their targets during user receivers. One special feature is an exercise. Chinese military authorities the inclusion of 5 geostationary satel- believed that the event occurred due to lites, raising the number of satellites the U.S. denial of GPS signals. Since in the constellation to 35. Another then, China decided to develop a satellite differentiator from the U.S. GPS, Rus- navigation system under its own control sian GLONASS, and European Galileo and to complete the construction of the DEJIAN KONG system is its unique function of short first generation of the BDS (BDS-1) at the LEIDEN UNIVERSITY (THE NETHERLANDS) message communications and posi- beginning of 21st century. FABIO TRONCHETTI, tion reporting capability, benefiting However, as the BDS-1 was just a HAOLIMO LAW FIRM, BEIJING (CHINA); from the Chinese government’s strong regional system with little commercial SCHOOL OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF support on both technical and financial value, the Chinese government accepted MISSISSIPPI aspects. the invitation from the European Union The BDS is designed and developed (EU) to join the Galileo program, with 38 InsideGNSS JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 www.insidegnss.com the ultimate goal of challenging the tions involved in the BDS program are the CSSN). The CSSN is the Navigation monopoly of the U.S. GPS. However, the following: Force under the leadership of Joint Staff due to certain disagreements with the The China Satellite Navigation Com- Department of the Central Military European Union, including China’s mittee ( , Commission (formerly known as the claim of being excluded from the key hereinafter referred to as the CSNC). The General Staff Department of Chinese decision-making process and techni- CSNC seems to be the top decision- People’s Liberation Army). The CSSN cal cooperation in the Galileo program, making organ on the fundamental was established as the agency for the China decided to re-focus its attention strategy and policy of the BDS and other management and operation of the BDS on constructing its own GNSS. Chinese PNT systems. On the one hand, in 1999. Although the competence of the Currently, China ranks the BDS as the CSNC gives the opening address to CSSN was described as “the research, one of the key national technical proj- the annual China Satellite Navigation demonstration, development, operation ects, supported by specific funding; the Conference, which shows its important and application guarantee of the BDS,” BDS program is organized pursuant to a position in the supervisory framework it focuses more on the operation of the three-step strategy: (1) the construction of the BDS for domestic activities. On control segment comprising various of BDS-1, which was finished in 2000, the other hand, the CSNC has also been ground stations of the BDS. with the goal of providing services over working thus far as the leading authority all of Chinese territory; (2) the construc- for international cooperation involving tion of the BDS-2, which has been in the BDS. For example, the CSNC, on operation since 2012 with the purpose behalf of China and as the chairman of of covering the Asia-Pacific region; (3) the Chinese side of China-Russia Coop- the deployment of the full constellation eration Program Committee on Satellite of BDS satellites, scheduled for comple- Navigation, signed the “China’s BeiDou tion by around 2020 and intended to System and Russian GLONASS Sys- offer global services. tem Compatibility and Interoperability Cooperation Joint Statement” with the former Russian Federal Space Agency System Opera- Service (currently known as the State Space Cor- Phase Name tion Year Scope poration ROSCOSMOS) in 2015. 1st BDS-1 2000 China The China Satellite Navigation Office The China National Administration Asia-Pacific 2nd BDS-2 2012 ( , CSNO). of GNSS and Applications ( Region Under the leadership of the CSNC, the , CNAGA). The 3rd BDS 2020 Worldwide CSNO is in charge of the management CNAGA is the functional department The three-step strategy of the BDS work of the BDS. The CSNO is a joint for the application management of office established by the competent gov- the BDS, which is contributing to pro- Governance Structure of the BDS ernmental departments involved in BDS mote the large-scale industrialization Similar to GPS and GLONASS, the BDS activities. For now, the CSNO is working and international development of the is a dual system used for both military on the system construction, application BDS. Specifically, the CNAGA has an and civilian purposes. However, no offi- promotion, and industrialization of the announced commitment to the follow- cial source has yet affirmed that the BDS BDS. ing four aspects of the BDS: is developed and exclusively controlled To aid in making scientific man- • management of the operation and by Chinese military departments, agement and technical decisions, the maintenance of the BDS, so as to despite a widespread belief that many CSNO is supported by its two internal ensure the successive and reliable ties exist between the BDS and Chinese branches, namely the Expert Commit- provision of BDS services; People’s Liberation Army. Official pub- tee and the Expert Teams. In addition, • supervision over the manufacturing lications about the BDS simply use the the CSNO is responsible for releasing enterprises of BDS user segments, so expression “Chinese government” or top-level official policies and technical as to ensure the quality and safety of “China”. documents on the BDS both in Chinese BDS services; Furthermore, no official information and English as well as approving the • development of basic application cri- on the governance structure of the BDS documents on BDS-related performance teria and critical infrastructure of the has been formally released, even though and standard criteria. The CSNO also BDS, so as to consolidate the basis of a general framework of BDS-related operates the official website of the BDS application development; authorities can be drawn out through <http://www.beidou.gov.cn>. • the establishment of innovation plat- available open news reports and docu- The Central Station for Satellite Navi- forms in terms of an industry alli- ments about the BDS. The key organiza- gation ( , hereinafter ance, industry base, industry forum www.insidegnss.com JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2017 InsideGNSS 39 GNSS & THE LAW and international cooperation for within the Chinese territory is under policy, and it always places great impor- the BDS, so as to promote the com- the responsibility of the Bureau of Radio tance on the development of the BDS. munication and cooperation among Regulation of the Ministry of Industry The document has thus far been updated businesses. and Information Technology of China, to the fourth version in 2016. The National Technical Commit- which is also known as the State Radio After summarizing certain achieve- tee on BeiDou Satellite Navigation of Office. ments in the field of the BDS since 2006, the Standardization Administration of the third version (2011) addresses the China ( Policy and Law of the BDS three-step strategy of the BDS and lists , hereinafter the NTCBDSSA). The Different from its competitors in the the BDS as one of the priority projects NTCBDSSA was established in 2014 and domain of satellite navigation, par- in key fields; the latest version (2016) is under the joint leadership of the Stan- ticularly the EU and the United States., requires the improvement of BDS appli- dardization Administration of the Peo- China owns a unique socialist system of cations and promotion of international ple’s Republic of China (SAC) and the laws with Chinese characteristics. China cooperation of the BDS. Equipment Development Department of has recently placed great emphasis on White Paper on China’s BeiDou Navi- the Central Military Commission (for- the fundamental principle of governing gation Satellite System. This white paper merly known as the General Armaments the country by law. Accordingly, the rule was released in June 2016, which makes Department of Chinese People’s Libera- of law has been proposed very frequently it the latest policy document concern- tion Army).