China has unveiled plans for a nationwide missile defence network, responding swiftly after United States President Donald Trump vowed in May 2025 to build the “Golden Dome,” a multi‑layered shield designed to intercept airborne threats before they reach American territory.
China’s proposed radar-backed anti-missile system was first outlined in an academic paper published by Modern Radar, a research unit of the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, in July this year.
According to the paper, the system offers a “distributed early‑warning detection big‑data platform” that fuses space‑based sensors, satellites, airborne systems, sea and ground radars into a unified network.
The system aims to deliver real‑time early-warning awareness at a nationwide scale, enabling high-speed data integration to detect and track complex missile threats, enhance decision timelines and support large‑scale simultaneous threat monitoring.
The paper also references the use of QUIC (Quick UDP Internet Connections), a next‑generation encrypted data‑transport protocol, to sustain secure, low‑latency communications across distributed nodes, even in high‑interference or contested electromagnetic environments.
The paper claims that the system can track up to 1,000 incoming missiles simultaneously, drawing data from satellites, ground-based and over‑the‑horizon radar, optical sensors, maritime platforms, airborne early‑warning aircraft and orbital reconnaissance assets.
“China has moved a step ahead in the global missile defense layout with its distributed early‑warning platform, outpacing the US Golden Dome,” a Guangdong-based commentator using the pseudonym “Humanity Blues” says in an article. “The Chinese prototype system has already undergone testing and delivery to the military, while the US remains at the framework design stage, with its data architecture still being mapped out.”
The commentator says China’s newly-proposed radar system serves as the defence network’s “brain and nervous system,” while Golden Dome has interception capability, meaning it has “a brain, nerves and fists in one.”
“Some people think the US Golden Dome is superior to China’s one. However, they forget that China already has a strong fist, and that is its hypersonic missile system,” he says. “Data integration is now a top priority, and China has already achieved breakthroughs in this area.”
“Once fully constructed, the Golden Dome will be capable of intercepting missiles even if they are launched from other sides of the world, and even from space,” Trump said in the press conference on May 20. The White House initially planned to spend US$25 billion, part of a US$175 billion plan, to deploy space‑linked sensors and interceptors.
The Pentagon appointed Space Force General Michael Guetlein to lead the effort, targeting operational status by 2028. Officials acknowledge that the chief challenge lies in integrating sensors, interceptors and command networks across military and commercial space assets.
Space Security Alarm
At the 2025 Defense in Space Conference (DISC) in London on October 28, space defence experts delivered a blunt warning: The West is running out of time. China is accelerating space‑linked missile defense, Russia is hardening counter‑space capability and Western deterrence has entered an era defined by speed of deployment, not strategy papers.
(From left) Moderator Nik Smith (with Lockheed Martin Space) Gabriel Elefteriu, Michelle Howard and Justin Keller discuss the United States’ Golden Dome. Photo: Asia Times, Jeff Pao
“Golden Dome is the most consequential shift in strategic affairs in a generation. This is not an upgrade cycle, it is a strategic reset, and the point at which space stops being a support layer and becomes the center of gravity for deterrence and conflict,” Gabriel Elefteriu, senior fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, a London-based defence and security think tank, said in a panel discussion during the event.
He said space is no longer a supporting domain but “a warfighting arena in its own right,” adding that China’s missile tracking and orbital infrastructure means “the next conflict will not begin in the Pacific or Europe, but it will begin in orbit.” On Russia, he cautioned that Moscow is aligning counter‑space systems with nuclear doctrine, saying Russia aims to “fight blind, and leave everyone else blind first.”
“The West is too slow by design and too linear by instinct,” said Michelle Howard, strategic policy adviser at D Group, a UK defense and security consultancy. “We are optimized for planning, not pacing. In this race, planning is not a substitute for fielding.
She said China has shifted the contest away from hardware dominance to network dominance, explaining that “the side that scales data fusion first will dictate the first five minutes of conflict, and that decides everything.”
Beijing’s model, she added, shows that “simpler architecture delivered fast beats exquisite systems delivered late,” and she argued that space competition can no longer be viewed as a bilateral US-China fight.
She said a tightening alignment between China, Russia, Iran and North Korea was forming, involving shared technologies, intelligence and launch support, and she warned that it was already reshaping space competition into a multi‑front challenge. Such an alliance could “erode traditional deterrence logic, stretch Western defensive bandwidth, and accelerate proliferation in ways that outrun existing alliance planning.”
Justin Keller, chief architect at DGS Space, a US firm specialising in space systems and national security architectures, said that America and its allies must abandon incrementalism.
“Deterrence now means denial at scale, not retaliation after impact. We are no longer in an era where the second move wins. Whoever operationalises first sets the ceiling for the conflict,” he said. “If we are still debating architectures while others are printing deployment timelines, we have already lost the pacing battle.”
The Nantianmen Project
Beijing’s ambitions in space are not limited to early deployment. Chinese planners are also investing in narratives of long-term technological dominance, exemplified by the Nantianmen Project, a highly publicised, state-backed science fiction concept exploring future aerospace power.
Unlike missile defense infrastructure, Nantianmen is currently fictional and educational in nature, not a military program.
Promoted by Chinese state media and linked to technology outreach through AVIC Global, Nantianmen depicts a sprawling orbital defense ecosystem populated by modular space stations, humanoid combat robots, carrier-class space platforms, drone swarms, laser artillery and transforming aerospace jets in 2050. Several of its designs draw clear visual parallels with Japanese anime franchises such as Gundam.
Among its most eye‑catching concepts are hypersonic spaceplanes capable of near‑orbital glide and rapid atmospheric re‑entry, and a giant aircraft carrier capable of launching robotic fighters and patrol craft – a visual metaphor for strategic reach rather than a deployable defense system.
The project has attracted outsized attention overseas despite its fictional status. US researchers and policy circles have previously flagged Nantianmen as a source of public anxiety, concerned less about the technology itself and more about its blend of strategic messaging, mass appeal and state endorsement.
Brandon Weichert, a US geopolitical analyst, says in an article that even as a conceptual project, Nantianmen signals an intent Washington cannot ignore. He warns that if realised, it could “surpass” America’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) system by fusing air and space into one manoeuvring battlespace.
He says a system linking spaceplanes, strike drones and orbital nodes could enable “space‑to‑air engagements resembling dogfights,” with the ability to target satellites and support precision strikes over the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. He cautions this would “collapse the boundary between atmospheric and orbital warfare” and erode the US’s space advantage.
Some Chinese commentators have framed the Nantianmen as a public vision of future space competition, likening it to a “Star Wars design concept” rather than a real weapons programme.
A Jiangsu-based columnist says that, though fictional, Nantianmen carries real narrative power that can shape how China imagines future aerospace competition and strategic confidence.
Read: Nobel laureate urges China to deepen space collaboration
Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3
