China's Beidou Navigation System

choi

Miles Yu, Inside China: US-Taiwan Weapons Deal Near. Washington Times, Jan 16, 2013
http://www.washingtontimes.com/n ... -weapons-deal-near/

My comment:
(a) Skip the first story, whose significance is unknown to me. I simply do not know the weapons systems are new sales or old ones to be delivered soon.
(b) The focus is on the second story, whose heading is "China to track all vehicles."

Quote:

(a) "China’s own version of the GPS navigation system, called Beidou, became operational throughout the country a little over a year ago

(b) "Violators [in China] who fail to install the Beidou receivers could lost their driving privileges of face other punishments."

(c) "Standard GPS receivers in the United States can only pick up signals from satellites but cannot identify the users’ locations through the satellites.

"The Chinese system, however, could provide the communist government with a massive, new surveillance capability because Beidou requires all users to send signals back to satellites, which instantly transmit them to a central processing information center for storage or analysis.