Swarajya, an Indian right-wing monthly magazine, published on 23 July 2025 an article titled "Xi Jinping's Starlink Challenge Stalls as China's Satellite Constellation Projects Face Launch Bottlenecks; India's Private Sector Advances."
Elon Musk's Starlink, the pioneering satellite internet service, faces competition from China's state-led Guowang and the Shanghai-backed Qianfan. Musk's Starlink has launched more than 7,000 satellites providing connectivity to over five million customers in more than 100 countries.
Both of the Chinese projects face delays caused by rocket shortages, sluggish deployment rates, and internal competition. As of July 2025, Guowang had launched only about 40 satellites in a program that envisages a network of over 13,000 that will provide high-speed internet for civilian and military use.
Qianfan, also known as SpaceSail and G60 Starlink, is backed by the Shanghai municipal government and plans to have 15,000 satellites by 2030. To date, it has launched about 90 satellites and at least 17 of them have failed to reach their intended orbits. State-backed Guowang receives launch priority, repeatedly pushing Qianfan to the sidelines.
These problems in China's satellite programs may be alleviated, however, as Xi Jinping has reportedly instructed the People's Liberation Army to accelerate space-based communication systems in order to build a Chinese alternative to Starlink.
Comment: All of this has important implications for the Global South, and especially Africa, where Starlink has been slow to take hold and Chinese competition could challenge it.