One such obstacle appears to be China's reluctance to reduce its already outmatched arsenal-among the likely requirement of joining agreements like New START.Ĭhinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, addressing the UN-backed Conference on Disarmament on June 11, said China planned to keep its nuclear arsenal at a "minimum level" and "does not compete with any other country in size or scale." Planet Labs Inc.Ĭonvincing China to join arms control dialogue is the most ideal solution, they added while also noting obvious challenges to this endeavor. Along with other known sites in China, the country's ICBM silo count reaches around 250, according to a FAS report published on July 26, 2021. Researchers with the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) estimate around 110 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch sites are being built within a grid approximately 300 square miles in size. While environmental domes have been placed over at least 14 under-construction nuclear silos, experts say building preparations are underway at another 19 bases in Hami, Xinjiang, China. When complete, the addition of 250 bases will give China a larger number of silo-based ICBMs than Russia, and bring its total to about half the size of the U.S. The military also has around 100 truck-mounted ICBM launchers. The "shell game" refers to a strategy deployed by the United States during the Cold War, when its nuclear arsenal would be constantly shuttled between a larger number of silos, obscuring the true location and quality of the country's nuclear strike capabilities.Ĭhina's People's Liberation Army Rocket Force has for decades maintained about 20 silos for nuclear-capable DF-5 ICBMs, the FAS research notes. "Some analysts favor the 'shell game' hypothesis while others, including officials we have talked to, assume that the silos will eventually be filled," he told Newsweek. "It is unknown at this point whether all silos will be filled," said Kristensen, who is project director at FAS. Like the sites in Yumen, Korda and Kristensen's analysis found each nuclear silo to be spaced apart by 1.8 miles of land-another similarity in the grid pattern. The ICBM launch sites in Inner Mongolia were also used as a guide by CNS experts with the East Asia Nonproliferation Program (EANP), according to program director Jeffrey Lewis, whose colleague Decker Eveleth discovered the Yumen missile field while combing through images supplied by the commercial satellite company Planet. "Construction and organization of the Hami silos are very similar to the 120 silos at the Yumen site, and are also very similar to the approximately one-dozen silos constructed at the Jilantai training area in Inner Mongolia," said Tuesday's report, noting that the total number of potential launch facilities now stands at about 250. Environmental domes have been placed over at least 14 silos, while preparations are underway at another 19 bases, they said. In their findings, Korda and Kristensen estimate that construction of the Hami sites began in March, about a month after work is believed to have started at the Yumen bases. Under-construction facilities believed to be nuclear missile silos are discovered in the desert of Hami, Xinjiang, China.
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