On October 13 2017, the 4th meeting of the Russia-China Committee for Projects on Strategic Cooperation in the field of Satellite Navigation was held in St. Petersburg, Russia. The meeting was co-chaired by Sergei Savelyev, Deputy Director-General of Roscosmos, and Wang Li, Chairman of the Commission for China’s Navigation Satellite System.
During the meeting, the two parties agreed to extend their cooperation in the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) of both countries, i.e., in Russia’s GLONASS and China’s BeiDou systems. In particular, they discussed an ongoing joint project studying navigation along the Silk Road Economic Belt, as well as a platform that allows the sharing of information on the progress of GLONASS and BeiDou.
The meeting also reviewed the four ongoing Sino-Russian working groups focusing on technical issues; these include studying the compatibility of the GLONASS and BeiDou systems, setting standards on the navigation systems, and the building of joint GNSS monitoring stations.
Currently, the two parties are in the process of finalizing various Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) for 2018, which were discussed earlier this year, and which they plan to sign as soon as possible.
China and Russia have been collaborating on BeiDou and GLONASS for a number of years. In May 2015, a major step was taken when both agreed collaborate on synchronizing the two systems; that year, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin in charge of Defense and Space announced the building of a joint production facility for receiver modules. In 2016, the two launched seven projects, including a joint design centre for navigation chips.
