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This is not good news: EU and China are set to collaborate on GALILEO. For those who are not familiar with the GALILEO program, it is a planned European equivalent to the US Global Positioning System (GPS). The European Union has long been touting this system as a solution to American control of satellite navigation systems, which they feel is a real and immediate problem given the criticality of GPS in numerous civilian and military ventures. To quote a technical paper from the GALILEO project, entitled The European dependence on US-GPS and the GALILEO initiative:

The fact is that the US not only controls the GPS infrastructure and operations, but also control the users who can have access to it. The US is therefore in control of the current and future performance of GNSS [Global Navigation Satellite System] and the timing of changes to this performance. This may not be consistent with the requirements of Europe. As our economic dependence on GPS grows, Europe can be held to ransom on all issues related to its use of GPS and might be obliged to pay governmental levies to the US in the future. Europe cannot accept this.

This is a fair enough statement — The US has long tried to maintain ownership over critical elements of its infrastructure in this way, and I certainly don’t begrudge the European Union doing the same. It is the introduction of China into this equation that is worrisome.

It seems reasonable to guess that China is investing in this system for the same reason as the European Union — namely, they want freedom from possible US limits on GPS. But, if China is trying to gain freedom from the US, why immediately hand over part of that freedom to the EU? And likewise, why does the EU think it worthwhile to hand over part of its freedom to China? While mere cost may be a factor, there is no doubt that both sides have considered the strategic implications of this deal carefully. Given that, the only possible explanation is that both the EU and China have decided that they are less likely to have a falling out with each other than with the United States.

This is not good for the United States. Right off the bat, this tells us that we will have little or no support from Europe if China attempts to forcefully reunify Taiwan with the mainland. This is one of the more likely scenarios that would cause the US to attempt to limit China’s GPS access, and the Chinese no doubt considered it when buying into GALILEO. The same goes for almost any other military action involving China.

Depending on how operational control of the system is divided, this may also give China an excellent club to use against the EU if the EU wishes to take military action which China does not support. Although GALILEO is intended to be interoperable with GPS, the details of this interoperation are still in flux. If the EU militaries standardize on GALILEO-only positioning systems, they will become vulnerable to Chinese manipulation of the GALILEO system. (The GPS system is solely under American control precisely to avoid vulnerabilities such as these.)

The EU is eager to disassociate themselves from American dependencies and influences, and to establish themselves collectively as a world power. I simply hope that this eagerness hasn’t caused the EU to make themselves vulnerable to the People’s Republic of China in a way they had not anticipated. Trusting the wrong friend with a vital asset can easily prove deadlier than not having that asset at all.