One of many aspects of the current technology war between China and the USA (see lead item) concerns positioning satellites. China is spending at least $9bn on an alternative to GPS, which will help in its overarching aim of reducing its reliance on US technology and services in future. The fact that GPS satellites and their location data are controlled by the US Air Force is a source of nervousness for China, hence its investment in one of its largest ever space-related programs. “They don’t want to depend on the US’s GPS,’’ Marshall Kaplan, a professor in the aerospace engineering department at the University of Maryland, told Bloomberg. “The Chinese don’t want to be subject to something that we can…