China ‘building new silos for nuclear missiles’

Satellite imagery appears to show China building a new network of silos for launching nuclear missiles.

A satellite image showing a field of potentially 120 missile silos near the city of Yumen in the northwestern province of Gansu.

Satellite imagery appears to show China building a new network of silos for launching nuclear missiles, a US think tank said, the second such project that American analysts have accused Beijing of advancing in recent weeks.

In a report released on Monday (Tuesday AEST), a pair of researchers at the Federation of American Scientists said they found what they characterised as continuing efforts to build a missile-silo field in China’s northwestern frontier region of Xinjiang, after reviewing commercial satellite imagery.

The images showed 14 silo-construction sites spaced roughly 3km apart from each other in a grid pattern, each with shelters protecting them from the elements, said the report, which also cited 19 other sites where soil appeared to have been cleared as preparation for building work.

Researchers estimated that the field may eventually feature about 110 silos, given the grid outlines around the entire facility, located near the city of Hami in eastern Xinjiang. Construction of the silo field appeared to have started in March, the report said.

The report came just weeks after experts from another US think tank said they detected signs, also using commercial satellite imagery, that China was building a field of potentially 120 missile silos near the city of Yumen in the northwestern province of Gansu.

“The silo construction at Yumen and Hami constitutes the most significant expansion of the Chinese nuclear arsenal ever,” though China’s nuclear-weapons stockpile still wouldn’t come close to matching the levels maintained by the US and Russia, the researchers from the Federation of American Scientists said.

The think tank estimates that China has about 350 nuclear warheads, compared with the nearly 4000 warheads that the US and Russia each maintain. By building new missile silos, Beijing may be trying to strengthen the readiness of its own nuclear forces and ensure its land-based missiles can better survive enemy attacks, among other reasons, the researchers said.

The Chinese embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. China has declared its commitment to not using nuclear weapons unless first attacked by others – known as a “no first use” policy – and insisted that it maintains the minimum level of nuclear forces required to safeguard its national security.

The analysis on the Yumen silo field, conducted by experts at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies, was reported by the Washington Post in late June. Both analyses cited imagery provided by satellite-imaging firm Planet Labs Inc.

Chinese state media have dismissed the June report on the Yumen silo field as disinformation. The website of Reference News, a state-run newspaper, published an article suggesting that the satellite images captured the construction of wind turbines rather than missile silos – a claim echoed on Twitter by a state-television journalist.

Global Times, a nationalistic Communist Party tabloid, questioned the credentials of the one of the researchers who analysed the Yumen silo field, calling him an “amateur”.

“I suggest the Chinese side ignore this report and other similar reports in Western media. China should neither confirm nor deny such ‘revelation’ and let the Western media imagine it,” Hu Xijin, the newspaper’s editor in chief, wrote in a July 2 commentary. “This is what nuclear deterrent means.”

The Wall Street Journal