Coordinate military and local information transmission network construction and develop a national fiber-optic network for shared military and civilian use. Deepen the fused development of space-based communications systems and accelerate the construction of a globally accessible mobile satellite communications system for shared military and civilian use.
统筹军地信息传输网络建设，构建军民共用的国家光缆网。深化天基通信系统融合发展，加快推动军民共用全球移动通信卫星系统建设。
State Council, 13th Five-Year National Informatization Plan (“十三五”国家信息化规划), December 27, 2016.
Executive Summary
China’s air-space-ground integrated networks are attracting investment as part of the country’s expanding New Type Infrastructure, particularly satellite internet. But their significance may extend beyond commercial development. Chinese national planning documents explicitly connect integrated information networks and satellite communications with Military-Civil Fusion, while PLA doctrinal experimentation points toward growing requirements for communications and coordination across operational domains. This analysis examines the convergence of civilian investment, military-civil infrastructure policy, and emerging military concepts. The available evidence does not establish that PLA doctrine is driving specific satellite investments. It does, however, identify integrated networks as an important area for investigating how Digital China’s infrastructure development may support China’s evolving military capabilities.
Where Investment Meets Military Requirements
Over the past week, following publication of the National Development and Reform Commission’s 2023 Central Budget Investment Plan, financial analysts in China have been racing to identify the next high-growth segments within Digital China’s infrastructure build-out.
One frequently cited opportunity sits within a New Type Infrastructure (NTI) Tier Three subcategory: Satellite Internet (卫星互联网). This category encompasses multiple technology programs, including LEO broadband satellite constellations and supporting network architectures.
Several investment firms have pointed to accelerated development of China’s air-space-ground integrated networks (SAGIN: 空天地一体化网络) since Satellite Internet was formally designated an NTI category in April 2020. While analysts are, by definition, speculative, their conclusions align with a deeper structural pattern: integrated networks sit at the intersection of Digital China infrastructure, civilian aerospace development, and Military-Civil Fusion (MCF).
The question is whether the current investment interest reflects primarily commercial opportunity—or something more closely connected to China’s evolving military requirements.
A Civilian Technology with MCF Roots
Integrated network concepts long predate their current investment appeal. On the civilian side, a four-dimensional ground-sea-air-space integrated information network (SAGSIN: 陆海空天一体化网络) has been under development since at least 2016, with applications including navigation, positioning, and air-traffic management. China’s 13th Five-Year National Informatization Plan, issued in December 2016, explicitly linked shared communications infrastructure, including space-based systems, to Military-Civil Fusion objectives. As Kai Lin Tay noted in The Diplomat, early funding for space-ground integrated networks appeared in the 2016 planning cycle and was led by China’s defense electronics sector, underscoring the technologies’ dual-use potential.
The original national plan provides particularly revealing evidence. Its provisions on Military-Civil Fusion call for coordinating military and civilian information infrastructure, developing shared communications networks, promoting the fused development of space-based communications systems, and accelerating the construction of satellite communications capabilities intended for shared military-civil use.
One provision is especially direct:
Coordinate Military-Civil Fusion in the aerospace domain and build an integrated space-ground cyberspace infrastructure.
统筹推进航天领域军民融合，构建天地一体网络空间基础设施。
These are not merely commercial network objectives. They establish military-civil integration as an explicit national infrastructure requirement. The civilian-military overlap also becomes visually apparent in a September 2020 issue of the Chinese Journal on the Internet of Things (物联网学报). Although the article presents SAGIN as a civilian network architecture, its lead diagram—reproduced above—includes a ground-based “military operations network” within the broader system. The diagram shows this network communicating with an emergency communications network, but does not explain the military component’s role.
The same illustration depicts a gray-hulled vessel connected to the maritime segment of the network. Its military status is not identified, but the explicitly labeled military operations network already establishes that the proposed architecture encompasses military-relevant applications. The graphic does not prove the existence of a fully implemented military-civil network. It does, however, illustrate how civilian technical literature can envision integrated systems serving multiple institutional and operational requirements.
Author’s Note: Air-Space-Ground Integrated Networks (空天地一体化网络, SAGIN) and Ground-Sea-Air-Space Integrated Information Networks (陆海空天一体化网络, SAGSIN) describe related approaches to integrating communications and information infrastructure across physical domains. The latter explicitly includes maritime networks. Their appearance in different documents does not necessarily establish separate national programs or a formal civilian-military division.
Doctrinal Evolution on a Parallel Track
This technological trajectory appears to run alongside a second, less visible development: PLA doctrine and concepts for integrated operations across multiple military domains. Beginning in the early 2010s, the PLA Air Force adopted the concept of “Air-Space Battle, Unified Offense-Defense,” emphasizing coordinated operations across air and space domains. The concept appeared during a period when the United States was also developing new approaches to integrated operations, including Air-Sea Battle. By the late 2010s, Chinese military sources also described experimentation with Air-Ground Battle concepts, including exercises involving PLA ground forces and the former Second Artillery Force’s successor, the PLA Rocket Force. These developments raise an important infrastructure question.
Integrated military operations place demanding requirements on communications, information sharing, sensing, and coordination across operational domains. Networks capable of connecting sensors, platforms, command nodes, and decision-makers could help satisfy those requirements. And China’s Military-Civil Fusion policies explicitly identify integrated and shared information infrastructure and space-based communications capabilities as national development objectives. That convergence is worth examining. But an important distinction remains: the existence of infrastructure potentially suited to multi-domain operations does not establish that any particular PLA doctrinal concept directed its development or funding.
Open-source discussion of integrated network technologies has expanded, while the doctrinal material available for this analysis is less extensive. Whether this reflects changes in PLA experimentation, publication practices, or the accessibility of relevant sources remains unclear. What we can say is that the relevant technological capabilities and military concepts have been developing over overlapping periods, against the background of explicit national policies supporting military-civil integration.
Correlation or Coordination?
China’s development of air-space-ground integrated networks raises an important question: are these primarily civilian infrastructure investments with potential military applications, or are military requirements also influencing their development? The evidence establishes an important starting point. China’s 2016 National Informatization Plan explicitly called for Military-Civil Fusion in communications infrastructure, including shared military-civil networks and integrated space-based systems. In other words, the relationship between civilian and military infrastructure was not simply a possibility inferred from the technologies themselves. It was an expressed national policy objective.
The technological developments are consistent with that objective. Air-space-ground integrated networks are designed to connect communications and information systems across multiple domains. Their capabilities could support both civilian applications and military operations. But technical integration does not necessarily mean shared military-civil use, and shared use does not establish that particular investments were directed by the PLA.
The doctrinal relationship is more difficult to establish. PLA concepts for integrated operations across military domains imply substantial requirements for communications, information sharing, and coordination. These networks could help satisfy those requirements. What remains unclear is whether emerging doctrine has directly influenced their design, funding, or implementation. That distinction matters. The official policy connection between integrated infrastructure and Military-Civil Fusion is documented. The extent to which PLA operational requirements are shaping specific civilian infrastructure programs remains an open research question.
Digital China’s integrated networks may therefore become important enabling infrastructure for future PLA operations. The unanswered question is not whether these technologies have military applications, but how China’s national infrastructure programs, Military-Civil Fusion policies, and PLA operational requirements interact in practice. This is an area worth watching closely.
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