While China says it seeks cooperation with other satellite navigation systems, BeiDou could ultimately compete against GPS, Russia’s GLONASS and the European Union’s Galileo networks. That’s similar to how Chinese mobile phone makers and other producers of technically sophisticated hardware have taken on their foreign rivals.

The official Xinhua News Agency said BeiDou is compatible with the three other systems but gave no details on how they would work together.

For China, among the chief advantages of the system, whose construction began 30 years ago, is the ability to replace GPS for guiding its missiles, especially important now amid rising tensions with Washington.

It also stands to raise China’s economic and political leverage over nations adopting the system, ensuring that they line up behind China’s position on Taiwan, Tibet the South China Sea and other sensitive matters or risk losing their access.

Key to China’s success was the China Academy of Space Technology’s development of rubidium atomic clocks that provide time and frequency standards for BDS satellites, Xinhua said.

It said the system was proof that attempts by Washington to impose a “tough hi-tech blockage” and crackdown on Chinese companies such as Huawei had failed.

“In spite of such measures, China’s innovation capability has only grown stronger. Just as President Xi recently said at a symposium on China’s economic work: ‘No country nor individual can stop the historical pace of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Xinhua said.