THE COMPANION LEDGER · 求真
A plan to dominate orbit and twenty-four fronts is only as real as the rockets that actually fly, the chips that actually yield, and the demographics that refuse to cooperate. This is the honest companion to the strategy — the ledger of where the ambition meets the wall. 实事求是 — seek truth from facts.
// SPACE · 太空
Each space mandate, with its real maturity and the specific shortcomings between the pitch and the hardware.
// THE CADENCE GAP · 产能差距
China has filed for roughly 28,000 satellites. Deploying them is a launch-rate problem — and at the current pace the arithmetic is brutal. Move the sliders.
This is the deployment reality behind the strategy's buildable-on-paper designs. See the optimized constellation → the plan these numbers critique ↗
Reference: China flew ~68 orbital launches across all programs in 2024, only a handful of them dedicated megaconstellation missions. ITU rules require ~10% of a filing deployed within ~2 years, 50% within ~5, and 100% within ~7.
// THE WALLS · 二十四壁
Pulled from the same 2026 net-assessment corpus that powers the strategy site — here showing the wall China has not breached on each front.
// THE DEEP WALLS · 结构性约束
These cut across every front. They are demographic, financial, and political — the hardest kind, because no amount of engineering budget removes them.
// FAQ · 常见问题
Three structural ones no budget removes: no domestic EUV lithography, a shrinking and ageing population, and a non-convertible currency behind capital controls — compounded by thin alliances and the Malacca energy chokepoint.
Not yet. It has no domestic EUV scanner and is export-banned from ASML's; the best domestic tools top out around 28 nm. This single chokepoint caps advanced chips, AI compute, and high-end electronics.
On reusability, yes — as of 2026 China has not re-flown an orbital booster, while SpaceX has done so hundreds of times. China's megaconstellation filings far outpace actual deployment, gated by launch cadence.
No longer a foregone conclusion. A shrinking workforce, a deflating property sector, heavy local-government debt, and weak consumption have pushed any crossover out and may prevent a durable lead.
For now it is effectively science fiction: there is no working helium-3 fusion reactor anywhere, and the isotope sits in lunar soil at parts-per-billion, requiring megatonnes of regolith to be processed.
// SOURCES & BASIS · 来源
A critique built on the public record, not assertion. The basis behind each claim:
The us-china-rivalry net-assessment corpus, re-framed from China's side of the table.
USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries, IEA Critical Minerals, and SEMI / foundry disclosures on lithography nodes.
SIPRI, the FAS Nuclear Notebook, the IISS Military Balance, and the U.S. DoD China Military Power Report.
Public orbital-launch records and the ITU's deploy-by milestone rules for large constellations.
National statistics and UN population data, plus standard reporting on property, debt and currency convertibility.
Publicly announced milestones for Long March 10/9, ILRS, Tiangong, Tianwen and the megaconstellations.