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Liu Zhen

Zhao Ziwen

China’s Nantianmen Project – translated as Southern Celestial Gate – has captured widespread attention as a blend of science fiction storytelling and hi-tech military speculation.
Launched in 2017 by a subsidiary of the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China (Avic), the project originated as an aviation-themed sci-fi intellectual property (IP) rather than an active weapons development programme.
At its core, the project serves as a creative vehicle to showcase more than 100 futuristic weapon concepts, from massive strategic aerospace carriers to hypersonic fighters and tactical robotic swarms.
What sets the project apart is its high-profile real-world presence, with full-scale mock-ups of its futuristic platforms appearing at China’s air shows in recent years.
This blurring of fiction and reality has fuelled speculation about whether it is a symbolic preview of China’s ambitions in integrated air-space dominance amid competition with the US.
The plot
On its surface, the Nantianmen Project is a science fiction story which adopts the standard trope of humanity defending Earth from alien invasion. A novel of the same title was published in 2022, but development is said to have started in 2017.
According to the 2043 narrative setting, humanity is facing existential threats – impending aggression by an extraterrestrial civilisation amid geological disasters caused by the activities of silicon-based life forms deep within the Earth’s crust.
After contacting a scout probe from the technologically superior aliens and learning some of its technologies, the United States initiates an interstellar expedition programme that ultimately leads to its downfall.


Meanwhile, China has opted to establish a lunar base as part of an integrated Earth-moon defence system named Project Nantianmen, after the heavily guarded main entrance to the Celestial Court in Chinese mythology.
The book’s author is Wu Jun, who writes under the pen name Yelanghuan, a popular web novelist. Born in the late 1970s and active since the 2010s, he has published several books focusing on military sci-fi and fantasy.
Blurred lines
The storyline concludes with a hard-won victory achieved by a united humanity, led by the Chinese. However, the book’s plot matters little.
Discussions around the Nantianmen Project are almost all about its speculative armaments. The story is essentially a vehicle for the display of fictional hardware for a near-future space war.
Like the mechs in sci-fi classics such as Gundam or Macross, all of these weapons feature intricate visual designs and exaggerated specifications to highlight their hi-tech nature, while bearing names derived from ancient Chinese literature.
In total, over 100 of these units were detailed through schematics and blueprints in the official Nantianmen Project Artbook by artist Wei Tianhe, released in April 2025.
More striking, however, is that large-scale mock-ups of these weapons were presented at China’s top defence exhibitions, such as the Zhuhai and Changchun air shows, alongside the country’s actual cutting-edge new weapons.
At Zhuhai in 2024, a full-scale model of the fictional Baidi fighter shared the stage with the debut of the Chinese military’s fifth-generation J-35A stealth fighters and just weeks before sightings of China’s actual sixth-generation jets.

Similarly, at the 2025 Tianjin helicopter expo, a model of the story’s Zihuo vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) platform was presented almost as if it was a serious contender alongside real-world developments.
Such appearances sparked widespread speculation about whether they were in fact purely fictional. The debates were further fuelled by state broadcaster CCTV, which in January described the designs as “reflecting reality”.
Observers noted that some of the designs represented emerging technological trends and potential trajectories in China’s weapons development, such as hypersonic flight, dual-mode aerospace propulsion and metamaterial-based stealth.
Morphing airframes, autonomous swarms, AI-driven tactical decision-making, directed-energy weapons and reusable space-to-Earth systems also have resemblances to technological developments in the real world.
“The question about these technologies is not if they can be achieved, but which will come first and when they will all be fully realised,” military expert Wang Zhiming said in the CCTV report.
Hong Kong-based military analyst and former People’s Liberation Army instructor Song Zhongping agreed, saying that some of the technologies mentioned in the project – such as particle beam and hypersonic weapons – had already been put into practice.
He added that the Nantianmen Project IP could be seen as closely aligned with the PLA’s technological development cycle, which followed a tiered pipeline of “frontier exploration, advanced concept research, systematic development, and production”.
According to Song, the project could be seen as “frontier exploration”, with ideas that would need 20 to 30 years to become reality.
Connections
The high-profile exposure and media spotlight surrounding the mysterious project probably can be attributed to the entity behind it – especially true for the intense public interest it has generated.
The franchise is owned and operated by Avic Global Culture Technology Co, a subsidiary of the state-owned conglomerate responsible for the country’s military aviation.
That connection has triggered widespread speculation: could the conceptual arsenal of the Nantianmen Project actually mirror or even foreshadow some of China’s classified military advancements?




According to media reports, the project’s concept originated with the company in 2017. It is possible, therefore, that Wu’s novel and Wei’s artbook are commissioned works, although this has not been confirmed.
With registered capital of 25 million yuan (US$3.6 million), the company was established in 2014 as Avic Global Culture Communication Co under the umbrella of Avic Culture Co, a wholly owned entity of the Avic group.
According to registration information, the company has about 40 staff primarily engaged in the sale of electronics, handicrafts and daily consumer goods. It also operates a diverse range of services including cultural exchange, exhibition planning, advertising and media production.
The company changed its name in mid-2025 to Avic Global Culture Technology Co and was listed on the Cultural and Creative Board of the Beijing Equity Trading Centre.
In the same year, the company reached agreements with two separate cities to build Nantianmen Project theme parks – one in Shanghai and the other in Meizhou, in the southern province of Guangdong.
The Meizhou Base, which is scheduled to officially open to the public next month, is modelled as a replica of the interior of an aerospace carrier, spanning a total floor area of 1,600 square metres (5,250sq ft) across two decks.
The first deck will feature a combat mission challenge zone while the second will be dedicated to conveying an experience to visitors of what life on board the massive carrier would be like.
Meanwhile, work on the Shanghai Base, located in the developing Lingang Special Area, is expected to be finished by the end of this year, with a grand opening planned for August 1, 2027, the 100th anniversary of the PLA.
With more than 80,000 square metres (262,000sq ft) of floor space, the facility will include sets of the story’s Lunar Base, Mech Workshop, Deep Space Battlefield and the Bridge Command Centre of a space carrier. Visitors will engage in interactive combat missions.


To create the Nantianmen Project’s “ULTRAVIC Universe”, the park plans to expand into film, television and animation, as well as themed merchandise and interactive media, according to Ding Li, the company’s editor-in-chief.
The project’s aim was patriotic education through promoting aviation and aerospace technologies while advancing traditional Chinese culture, Ding said in a podcast interview in January.
“At its core, the project seeks to blend cutting-edge defence industry technology with imaginative storytelling – a bold vision and exploration of the future potential of China’s aerospace industry,” he said.
According to Song, the former PLA instructor, the theme park could serve multiple purposes, from tourism to patriotic and national defence education. “The theme park signals a vision of the future to the public. It also offers a preview of the possible blueprint for the future development of military science and technology.”
The hardware
According to the narrative, there are three key elements in the Chinese defence project: large strategic aerospace carriers, unmanned combat aircraft and tactical robots. These are individually named Luanniao, Xuannu and Chengying, respectively.
Named after a mythical Chinese bird, the Luanniao aerospace carrier boasts a wingspan of 682 metres (2,240 feet), a total length of 242 metres (794 feet) and is powered by two large nuclear fusion reactors and 38 hybrid engines.
With a maximum take-off weight of 129,900 tonnes, the Luanniao is capable of carrying 88 Xuannu carrier-based aerospace fighters in a single-stage orbital insertion up to an altitude of 42,000km (26,000 miles).

Armed with formidable particle and laser beam cannons, the Xuannu – or Mystic Lady – is hyper-manoeuvrable both within the Earth’s atmosphere and in space, with a top speed exceeding Mach 8 and acceleration surpassing 40 G.
It is available in both manned and unmanned variants and operates in Manned-Unmanned Teaming with the manned lead aircraft commanding drones during tactical sorties for deep penetration strikes and precision attacks.
Although reminiscent of a Gundam-style giant humanoid combat vehicle, the Chengying tactical robot is in fact a cohesive combat ecosystem designed for complex ground warfare.
At its core, the air-droppable Shadow Bearer is a manned command unit that directs a tactical squad of unmanned robots of varying sizes for diverse missions, including combat, reconnaissance, communications and fire support.
Should the command link be lost, the drones could utilise swarm intelligence to execute autonomous coordinated attacks.
Dozens of other platforms have been introduced to the public as part of the Nantianmen Project narrative.
The US should not discount China’s hi-tech threat, but at the same time, America must not fall for a Chinese psyop
Brandon Weichert, The National Interest
The Baidi, or White Emperor, fighter incorporates full-spectrum stealth, optional manned or unmanned operation and adaptive engines. Its modular payloads allow rapid switching between mission roles, while the variable-wing structure dynamically adjusts aerodynamic configuration according to altitude.
The Zihuo, or Purple Fire, is a VTOL platform for both manned and unmanned use, with a projected cruising speed of 700-800km/h (440-500mph) and the ability to operate in low-gravity or environments with a thin atmosphere.
The Langzhu, or Tarantula, transport and construction robot features both walking and cruising modes. Its six legs are equipped with tracks, enabling it to traverse rugged terrain and move at high speeds on flat surfaces via tracked propulsion.
China’s Star Wars?
Brandon Weichert, a senior editor for The National Interest, described the sci-fi concept as China’s own “Star Wars” project, drawing a parallel with the Cold War-era US initiative credited with pushing the Soviet Union into an unsustainable technological competition.
“The US should not discount China’s hi-tech threat,” Weichert wrote, in an article which appeared in a September issue of the bimonthly publication.
“But at the same time, America must not fall for a Chinese psyop designed to take them down the same way president Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defence Initiative took down the Soviet Union.”
While the Nantianmen Project itself has not raised any deep scrutiny from Washington, the outer-space races between the two powers are intensifying.


General B. Chance Saltzman, head of the US Space Force, has said many times that his branch is struggling to maintain an American space priority vis-a-vis China’s rapid advancement.
Saltzman told the Senate in April that Beijing was investing heavily in all categories of space weapons, while Washington was not, ranging from directed energy weapons to radio-frequency weapons and kinetic weapons, with each divisible into ground-based and space-based types.
The United States is now also looking for alliances in outer space projects beyond civilian usage, such as Japan.
Weichert told the South China Morning Post that the Nantianmen Project shared similarities with Reagan’s “Star Wars” initiative. Both were “fantastic propaganda that could eventually become real technology”, he said.
While the project was nothing more than a “brilliant propaganda push”, it was “undoubtedly true that by consolidating all these frontier technologies into one programme, the Chinese military-science community will eventually develop true spin-off technologies based on their experiments”.
“I would advise my US government colleagues to keep an eye on the project. Not necessarily because it will soon enter Chinese military service, but because all of the underlying frontier technologies involved are likely to be pushed forward at staggering paces.”
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Is it a storytelling vehicle for imaginative military hardware, blending science fiction with reality, or is it a glimpse of the future?


Everything we know about China’s mysterious, futuristic Nantianmen Project

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Is it a storytelling vehicle for imaginative military hardware, blending science fiction with reality, or is it a glimpse of the future?

Is it a storytelling vehicle for imaginative military hardware, blending science fiction with reality, or is it a glimpse of the future?