Subject type: State-owned missile and space conglomerate
Jurisdiction: People’s Republic of China
Also known as: China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, 中国航天科工集团
File opened: 21 August 2026
Last updated: 21 August 2026
Origin
CASIC was separated in 1999 from what is now CASC, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, in the same restructuring that split the shipbuilders and the aviation groups. The division was functional rather than geographic. CASC kept launch vehicles, satellites and the manned space programme. CASIC kept tactical and strategic missiles.
Outsiders routinely confuse the two, and the confusion has practical consequences for screening, because a compliance team that has checked CASC has not checked CASIC.
Command
Central state-owned enterprise under SASAC, with the usual party appointment of chairman and party secretary. The corporation is organised into numbered academies and research institutes, a Soviet-derived structure that persists across Chinese defence industry and makes the ownership map unusually hard to read from outside. A subsidiary’s connection to the parent is often expressed through an academy number rather than a recognisable corporate name.
Capability
The missile catalogue is the heart of it: cruise missiles including the CJ-10 family, anti-ship systems, surface-to-air systems including the HQ-9 export line, short-range ballistic missiles, and the hypersonic glide programmes that have drawn the most Western attention. The export brand for several of these lines is CPMIEC, itself separately sanctioned by the United States.
CASIC also runs a large commercial business in industrial equipment, information technology, cloud services and civil satellites, and it has built a commercial launch capability. This civil side is not incidental cover. It provides revenue, recruits engineers who would not join an obviously military employer, and gives the group access to dual-use technology through ordinary procurement.
The hypersonic work is where capability assessment is hardest. Test programmes are publicly acknowledged in outline and not in detail, and Western assessments have differed substantially on how close specific systems are to fielding.
Funding and ownership
State ownership through SASAC. PLA Rocket Force and service procurement provides the core revenue, supplemented by exports through CPMIEC and by the commercial businesses. Listed subsidiaries trade on Chinese exchanges.
Restrictions and exposure
CASIC and subsidiaries appear on the Section 1260H list of Chinese military companies and on US export control and investment restriction lists. CPMIEC has been sanctioned under missile proliferation authorities over transfers to Iran. Export controls on guidance components, specialty materials and machine tools apply across the group.
Procurement through intermediaries has been a recurring enforcement theme, with cases involving controlled electronics routed through Hong Kong and Southeast Asian trading companies.
Watch items
- HQ-9 export awards and the customers willing to take the sanctions risk.
- Commercial satellite and launch activity as a dual-use channel.
- Evidence of component transfers supporting Russian or Iranian missile production.
- Subsidiary naming changes that defeat screening.
Related files
- AVIC: aerospace counterpart
- Norinco: land systems counterpart
- Section 1260H: scope and consequences of listing