China is building a massive nuclear silos to preserve its second nuclear strike capabilities in case it is first attacked, over the Taiwan issue. These Silos are reported by the news agency Reuters for the first time !
The structures as shown in satellite images released for the first time include a sprawling web of launch pads, bunkers and communications nodes near the isolated nuclear silos that hold the Chinese military’s longest-range missiles. The images sourced from Security analyst Alexander Neill; Shuttle Radar Topography Mission; Natural Earth; OpenStreetMap reveal 80 pads for possible use by China’s expanding fleet of mobile missile launchers and air-defense batteries.
SHAILESH KUMAR, NATIONAL DEFENCE
NEW DELHI, 01st JUNE
They also show facilities that may serve electronic warfare, satellite communications and command operations. The new desert infrastructure is centered 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 kilometers away, the other some 230 kilometers.
They are flanked by armored bunkers and fortified weapons-storage areas, as well as airfields and railheads that link the octagons to the Hami silos.
The images show exercises involving large military vehicles occurred around the northern octagon this month and during April. Also evident in recent images, are large tents and what two analysts said appear to be camouflaged launch sites cut into the desert, some with air-defense missile batteries.
Significantly, each octagon sits at the core of a network of dirt roads and conduits that stretch far into the desert. These routes connect to the concrete pads, which are nestled among rocky outcrops and dry creekbeds.
The pads could be used to deploy mobile air-defense missiles, electronic warfare nodes or, from some of the larger ones, road-mobile ICBM launchers. At the northernmost octagon, a possible space or microwave communications facility is also under construction.
Taken together, experts say there is a real possibility that the octagonal structures and the strange towers are linked to C3 – command, control, and communications – as well as maintenance and storage activities related to China’s nuclear operations at the Hami ICBM silo site,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow in nuclear policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
A third octagon-shaped installation south of the Lop Nur nuclear test facilities is less developed. It appears to be used as a target range: Images show pock-marked earth, damaged buildings and what analysts at Vantor, a commercial provider of satellite imagery, said are mock-ups of Western jet fighters. Third octagon used as target range!
The extent of the defensive network near its silos potentially sets China apart from the other major nuclear powers. The U.S. and Russia whose warhead stockpiles and deployed weapons far exceed Beijing’s rely on a combination of sheer numbers of silos, their relative isolation and hardened construction to deter a first strike, rather than extensive missile defense.
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 scrutinized facets of President Xi Jinping’s military modernization because of what some foreign diplomats describe as Beijing’s lack of transparency and failed efforts by the United States 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 wouldn’t 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 U.S. 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.
U.S. officials and arms-control analysts say China is expanding and improving its nuclear weapons capabilities faster than any other nation. The latest Pentagon report on China’s military modernization says the country’s warhead production has slowed but it is on track to field 1,000 warheads by 2030. The December report estimated China is likely to have loaded 100 ICBMs across its three main silo fields.
China has also been strengthening its early-warning system, underpinned by its Huoyan-1 satellites, according to U.S. officials. The system can detect an incoming ICBM within 90 seconds of launch and alert a command center within three to four minutes, according to the Pentagon. That is sufficient time for China to fire its own silo-based weapons before they are hit.
A lot of information was documented earlier about the existence of such silos but Reuters is the first to report the extinction of the launchpad network linked to the Octagons. National defence cannot verify the imagery or existence of such silos independently as reported by the news agency Reuters !
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