Source: Reuters

In a remote Chinese desert, a vast military complex is taking shape that some security scholars say appears built to ensure no American first strike on China’s nuclear arsenal could reliably knock out Beijing’s ability to hit back.

China’s nuclear missiles can already reach any city in the United States. Now, satellite images reviewed by Reuters show Beijing is building a sprawling web of launch pads, bunkers and communications nodes near the isolated nuclear silos that hold the Chinese military’s longest-range missiles.

Desert defensive network
China has built more than 80 launch pads and three octagon-shaped installations in its remote northwest, near the Hami nuclear silo field.

The images reveal more than 80 pads for possible use by China’s expanding fleet of mobile missile launchers and air-defense batteries. They also show facilities that may serve electronic warfare, satellite communications and command operations, according to three security analysts, who assessed the imagery for Reuters.

The scale of the construction, which hasn’t been previously reported, points to a sweeping expansion of hardened infrastructure designed to protect and operate China’s land-based nuclear forces. Taken together, the network signals a significant upgrade in Beijing’s efforts to ensure second-strike capability, underscoring intensifying nuclear competition with the United States as tensions rise over issues such as Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Launch capability
Two of the dozens of concrete pads, as seen in commercial satellite imagery.

“We can see this infrastructure is being built on a grand scale, covering thousands of square kilometers 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 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.

China’s defense ministry didn’t respond to questions about its nuclear program and the developments revealed in the satellite imagery. The Pentagon said it wouldn’t comment on intelligence-related matters.

OCTAGONS IN THE DESERT
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.

Satellite images show the octagon structures contain housing for personnel and large military vehicles.