Satellite imagery has shown that China is building at least three missile silo fields in Yumen, Gansu Province, near Hami, Xinjiang Province, and Hanggin Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia.
It appears that China is building about 120 missile silos in Yumen, about 110 silos in Hami, and 29 in the Hanggin Banner field. At the beginning of the year, 16 missile silos were discovered in the Jilantai military training area of the People’s Liberation Army (PLARF), also in Inner Mongolia.
The Yumen field was discovered through commercial satellite imagery captured by researchers at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, California; the Hami field was identified by nuclear experts from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) using Planet Labs satellite imagery; the hanggin banner field was discovered by researchers at the China Aerospace Studies Institute in Washington DC.
The Yumen and Hami fields are identical and the silos are arranged in a perfect grid pattern about 3 km apart. Some of the silos have dome shelters. The fields are supported by nearby PLARF facilities.
This picture shows four different ICBM silos in different stages of construction. (Image credit: Planet Labs Inc)
Prior to these 2021 discoveries, China operated only 20 missile silos for its DF-5 liquid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for several decades. Once the work in progress is complete, China could have 250-270 new missile silos, more than ten times the number it had maintained for several decades.
The expert
Suyash Desai is a research fellow and works at the Takshashila Institution in Bengaluru on China’s defense and foreign policy. He also writes a weekly newsletter on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army called “The PLA Insight”.
Why is China building missile silos?
There could be three explanations.
FIRST, Some Chinese political scientists believe this could be China’s attempt to move towards a nuclear warning (LOW) position. LOW refers to a launch on an enemy upon detection of an incoming missile before the enemy missile hits its target.
China’s nuclear strategy has remained largely unchanged since 1964, when an atomic bomb first exploded. It is based on achieving deterrence through secure retaliation. The decisive prerequisite for this is the survivability of the Chinese nuclear arsenal after the first attack – conventional or nuclear – by an opponent. To get into the LOW position, China would have to combine some warheads with missiles and keep them on alert for a quick response. Currently, China is storing its warheads and missiles in a deactivated state separately under different orders.
It appears that China is building around 110 silos in Hami. (Image credit: Planet Labs Inc)
The 2013 PLA Academy of Military Science’s Science of Military Strategy document stated that China “can” LOW, and the Defense White Paper published by China in 2015 mentioned “quick response”. Admiral Charles A. Richard, commander of the US Strategic Command (Stratcom), said in his testimony to the Senate in April 2021 that “some of the Chinese armed forces have already taken a LOW stance”.
Silos at such an early stage, however, are not conclusive evidence of China’s move to LOW.
SECOND, it enables China to achieve its goal of increasing its nuclear warhead supply.
China currently has around 350 nuclear warheads. Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda of the Nuclear Information Project of the nonprofit FAS estimate that 272 of these 350 warheads are assigned to responders; the remaining 78 were manufactured for China’s new DF-41 solid fuel road mobile ICBM.
China has around 150 land-based missiles that can deliver between 180 and 190 nuclear warheads to some parts of the United States. If all new silos were loaded with a single warhead missile, the number would rise to 410-440. If the silos were loaded with the DF-41s once completed, which can carry up to two to three warheads per missile, that number would rise to 930-940 warheads.
For this, China would have to increase the number of DF-41s in its inventory and almost triple its nuclear warheads – unlikely in the near future. However, the construction of the silos suggests an increasing trend in China’s nuclear warheads and DF-41 missiles.
The third The assumption is that China could use these silos as a decoy.
Chinese scientist Tong Zhao of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program in Beijing has argued that China is concerned about improving US missile defense systems and conventional precision weapons that could undermine China’s nuclear deterrent. He has alleged that at the National People’s Congress in March 2021, President Xi Jinping instructed the military to “accelerate the creation of advanced strategic deterrent capabilities.”
The recently discovered silos could be an initiative to increase deterrence by keeping the adversary in the dark. This could be China’s shell game – where one, some, or all of the silos could have missiles forcing the attacker to target them all during an escalation. The attacker would have to waste more warheads or precision-guided weapons to destroy just a few missiles or perhaps target empty silos.
This would be a cost-effective strategy for China and could also strengthen its image as a serious nuclear power and the USA on an equal footing.
Source for map and all information: Missile Defense Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
How did the US react to the discovery of the silos?
On July 28th, Stratcom retweeted a report on the silos in the New York Times, saying, “This is the second time in two months that the public has discovered what we are all the time about the growing threat to the world and the veil World have said secrecy that surrounds it. “
In his testimony to the Senate in April, Adm Richard said that China is building ICBMs on a large scale. It’s likely that Stratcom knew about China’s construction of the silos before they were discovered by scientists using satellite imagery last month.
After the discovery of the Yumen field in the first week of July, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “The nuclear arsenal of the People’s Republic of China will grow faster and to a higher level than perhaps previously expected. This structure is worrying. That raises questions about the intentions of the PRC. ”A Pentagon spokesman told the Washington Post in late June that“ Defense Department leaders have testified and spoken publicly about China’s growing nuclear capabilities, which we expect to see in the next ten Years or more ”. The U.S. Department of Defense’s 2020 China Military Power Report predicts that China’s nuclear warhead supply, currently valued at the low 200s, will at least double over the next decade.
Pictures of Yumen Silo Field, where China may be building 120 missile silos. (Image credit: Planet Labs Inc)
And what did China say?
Neither the Chinese Foreign Ministry nor the Defense Ministry responded. Some Chinese media said the silos were wind farms and accused American academics and journalists of promoting a “Chinese threat theory.”
So should India be worried?
Viewed in isolation, these silos appear to have been specially built to increase deterrence against the United States.
But by and large, India should be vigilant about China’s nuclear ambiguity and its latest DF-26 medium-range road mobile dual-use missiles – 16 of which were deployed in Korla, Xinjiang, during the ongoing stalemate. India could be a potential target given the range of these missiles and the timing of deployment.
Although both China and India have promised “No First Use” nuclear doctrines, India’s modest ballistic missile defense capabilities and China’s nuclear ambiguity are a cause for concern for India.
What should the world do about these developments?
There is no obvious option for the US or any other. China has announced that it will not join the NEW START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty). Fu Cong, director general of the arms control division of China’s Foreign Ministry, recently said the US and Russia have nearly 20 times more nuclear warheads than China and that “it is unrealistic to expect China to join the two countries in a negotiation that aims to reduce nuclear weapons. “
Several American arms control scientists have called for a renewal of the US government-funded nuclear dialogue between the US and China after 15 years in 2019, due to growing tensions, “diminishing value” and the failure to start the Track 1 dialogue , has been suspended. Some others have said that the US’s newer missile defense capabilities are disrupting strategic stability and making arms control difficult.
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