HELSINKI — China’s national space endeavors have frequently grabbed headlines, but a transformation at the local level is playing another role in China’s broader space strategy.
Across the country, local governments are rolling out policies to cultivate commercial space industries and attempting to position their regions as key players in the burgeoning space sector.
The actions come as provinces discuss priorities for the year ahead. China holds its annual, national-level political sessions in early March, but the “sessions at the provincial level” begin around mid-January.
China’s central government designated commercial space as a strategic emerging sector for the first time in late 2023, before codifying this at the 2024 “Two Sessions” in Beijing. The result is to intensify a process in recent years that has seen the emergence of regional commercial space clusters, including in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou and others, as well as competition to attract space startups and moves to integrate space applications, such as Beidou and remote sensing.
New initiatives include tax incentives, subsidies, industrial clusters, and commercial spaceports. This approach allows provinces to experiment with commercial space initiatives as part of decentralized efforts for economic growth. A look at some of the developments gives an idea of the breadth and scale of commercial space developments.
Yangtze River Delta
The government of Wuxi city in Jiangsu province announced Jan. 10 a focus on “5+X” future industries including commercial space, low-altitude economy and humanoid robots, while at the provincial level there are calls for tax incentives, financial subsidies and other measures. Zhejiang province likewise identified future industries for support including commercial space, quantum information and brain-like intelligence.
In Shanghai, which has already announced a defined action plan to foster a commercial space ecosystem, members of the consultative political branch called for the acceleration of the international development of Shanghai’s space industry, noting that China’s space industry is still dominated by domestic demand. The termination of the IPO of Changguang Satellite Technology, a remote sensing commercial company in Northeast China as an example of the difficulties encountered by Chinese space companies.
Beijing and North China
Beijing, which also already has its own concrete action plan, has highlighted supporting 20 future industries, with Haidian district moving to create a 100-billion-yuan ($13.9 billion) commercial space cluster with nearly 200 companies.
Meanwhile, Xiong’an new area, southwest of Beijing, is outlining a roadmap for industrial development including space information, with China SatNet, which oversees the Guowang constellation, CASIC and other companies noted as existing pillars.
South China
Wenchang, which already hosts a new commercial spaceport, has recently begun constructing third and fourth launch pads at the facility. The city also intends to expand the entire commercial space value chain in the area, including plans to become a “space tourism capital.”
Guangdong late last year announced plans to foster space manufacturing, and coastal city Yangjiang now plans to establish the Guangdong (Yangjiang) Space Launch Center.
Elsewhere in China, Hubei province has called for a strong focus on integrating Beidou and remote sensing into industry, while Anhui province has plans for rapid economic growth with potential investment in space sectors including deep space exploration, with calls for other measures. Heilongjiang province in the northeast of the country, also aims to accelerate development of its space sector, including spacecraft manufacturing.
Strategic rationales
“China’s provincial policies in support of so-called New Space need to be seen as a major contributing factor to the emergence and current flourishing of the Chinese commercial space industry,” Marco Aliberti, associate manager and lead on international engagement at the European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), told SpaceNews. Aliberti notes that many of the China’s leading space companies have obtained substantial funding by provincial or city governments over the past 10 years.
“This local support to commercial space is informed by both strategic and economic rationales,” Aliberti says. “Strategically, at the provincial and/or municipal level, authorities are fully cognizant that commercial space industry is not only an important status marker of the overall strength and image of a province, but also an integral component of China’s civil-military integration strategy, of its overall military build-up as well as of its international power projection.”
This could also have global repercussions, according to Aliberti. “As reliance on purely domestic demand may pose limits to the growth of Chinese commercial companies, internationalization efforts are becoming more evident.”
Support to the space industry is seen as a means to develop new applications in other sectors through spin-off technologies, generate new and more business opportunities and services, foster innovation, diversify the economic base and growth model, moving from perspiration to inspiration, and contribute to the implementation of central government directives regarding high-end manufacturing, talent attraction and retention as well as industrial internationalization, Aliberti notes.
“Should the current levels of sponsorship by provincial and city governments continue to solidify, China’s space companies may in the future erode the traditional market shares held by European and American incumbents, at least in the emerging markets the Belt and Road countries as well as in the Latin American and African Region.”
Looking ahead
Provincial governments are following national directives while carving out unique roles in China’s expanding space ecosystem. As competition for investment and talent intensifies, China’s commercial space sector may be shaped by provincial innovation, the rise of satellite megaconstellations, and efforts to secure international partnerships. However, challenges such as global competition with a dominant SpaceX, supply chain constraints, and regulatory uncertainty may still limit its global reach.
This year may see a number of Chinese launch startups debuting larger, reusable rockets, potentially marking a breakthrough year for the country’s commercial space sector.
More broadly, 2025 also marks the final year of the 14th Five-year plan and formulation of the new 15th Five-year plan. Next year will see new objectives and the release of a new space white paper outlining the country’s accomplishments and its ambitions for the next five-year period.
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Article edited at 7:10 a.m. Eastern, Jan. 31, with comments from Marco Aliberti.
