Satellite images show China is building launch pads and bunkers near the isolated nuclear silos that hold its longest-range missiles
New satellite images show China is building launch pads and bunkers in preparation for a nuclear missile strike.
The vast military complex is taking shape near the isolated nuclear silos that hold the Chinese military’s longest-range missiles, images from Reuters show. Experts say the structure is being built to ensure no American first strike on China’s nuclear arsenal could reliably knock out Beijing’s ability to hit back.
The new desert infrastructure is centred on two octagon-shaped installations built over the past six years in eastern Xinjiang. Both are southwest of the Hami nuclear silo fields – one is about 140 kilometres away, the other around 230 kilometres away.
The images reveal more than 80 pads for possible use by China’s expanding fleet of mobile missile launchers and air-defence batteries. They also show facilities that may serve electronic warfare, satellite communications and command operations, according to three security analysts who assessed the pictures.
This marks an expansion of hardened infrastructure designed to protect and operate China’s land-based nuclear forces as China competes with the US in nuclear power and as tensions rise over issues such as Taiwan’s sovereignty.
“We can see this infrastructure is being built on a grand scale, covering thousands of square kilometres of desert beyond the silo fields,” said Alexander Neill, an adjunct fellow at Hawaii’s Pacific Forum think tank.
Depending on the precise capabilities, he said, “we’re looking at a very considerable enhancement and diversification of China’s strategic nuclear deterrent.”
The ability to protect its desert silos is key to China’s stated goal of forging a minimal but credible nuclear deterrent – a policy grounded in the capacity to retaliate if it is struck first. While the People’s Liberation Army can fire nuclear weapons from submarines and aircraft, the silo fields in the northwestern Xinjiang region and Gansu province are the core of its nuclear forces.
China’s nuclear build-up is among the most scrutinised facets of President Xi Jinping’s military modernisation because of what some foreign diplomats describe as Beijing’s lack of transparency and failed efforts by the US to engage the Chinese leadership on its evolving nuclear capabilities and intentions.
A cornerstone of China’s doctrine is its “no first use” policy, meaning its forces would not initiate a nuclear exchange. But some senior Western diplomats and analysts say China would possibly resort to nuclear coercion to limit outside involvement in a conflict over Taiwan.
Xi this month warned US President Donald Trump that mishandling of their countries’ disagreements over Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, could lead them to a “dangerous place”. Taiwan’s government rejects China’s sovereignty claim.
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