The Russians have GLONASS, and the EU will eventually have
Galileo, so China's probably been feeling left out of the GPS
party so far. Not for much longer though, as the switch for its
home grown Beidou system has just been flicked on, providing
location and timing data to its home turf. There are ten
satellites already in place and six more to follow next year, by
which time, most of the Asia Pacific will be covered. The rest
of the globe will be taken care of by 2020, once all of the
planned 35 satellites are sent up. So, while we may not see
something like iPhone support right away, it might be handy to
study the Interface Control Document the Chinese government's
put online anyway, y'know, just in case.   China begins trial
operations of home grown Beidou GPS system