Exclusive-China is building launch pads near its nuclear missile silos

By Greg Torode, Laurie Chen and Vijdan Mohammad Kawoosa

May 29 (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.

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.

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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.

“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 (PLA) 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. 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.

Exercises involving large military vehicles occurred around the northern octagon this month and during April, the images show. 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.

The existence of the octagons has been documented previously. But Reuters is the first to report the extent of the launch-pad network linked to the octagons; recent military activity around one of the facilities; and analysts’ assessments that the pads could field mobile missile launchers and electronic-warfare operations.

Five security scholars interviewed by Reuters agreed the infrastructure broadly could support China’s nuclear program, as well as other military purposes. But they cautioned that key details remain unknown — including the weapons China might deploy at the launch pads and whether the octagon structures house truck-mounted ballistic missiles or facilities for fitting nuclear warheads.

The PLA displayed nuclear-capable weapons during a parade in Beijing last September to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. These included silo-based and truck-mounted intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

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 — sufficient time for China to fire its own silo-based weapons before they are hit.

‘AN EXTRAORDINARY EFFORT’

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, three security scholars said.

Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project, said while it was difficult to conclude how the various installations would be used, “it is hard to rule anything out” given the scale of the infrastructure in such a hostile environment.

The conduits that link the pads to the octagon structures may contain fiber-optic cables for communications, Kristensen and Neill said.

At the northernmost octagon, a possible space or microwave communications facility is also under construction, three analysts said, pointing to satellite dishes and two large towers.

“Taken together, I think 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.

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, Kristensen said.

The scale of what is emerging in China’s northwestern desert has left even seasoned analysts startled.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it,” Kristensen said. “It’s an extraordinary effort.”

(Reporting by Greg Torode, Laurie Chen and Vijdan Mohammad Kawoosa. Additional reporting by Reuters Visual Verification Team. Editing by David Crawshaw and Rebecca Pazos.)