Defense One :


In recent weeks, the discovery of two large clusters of ballistic missile silos in western China forced observers to dramatically increase their estimates of China’s number of ICBM silos and even rethink beliefs about Beijing’s nuclear strategy. But this dramatic imagery—notably, captured by commercial satellites—is only the most visible part of a larger growth.

Until recently, the PLA Rocket Force had been known to maintain about 20 silos for its liquid-fueled DF-5 ICBMs. In late June, analysts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies discovered about 120 more silos in a remote part of Gansu Province. This alone was huge news, representing a sudden six-fold increase. About four weeks later, analysts at the Federation of American Scientists announced the discovery of a second such area of almost equal size, this one located in a remote part of Xinjiang, about 240 miles from the small city of Hami. The second site is in an earlier stage of construction but appears large enough to eventually house about 110 silos. This puts the count at around 230, a more-than-ten-fold increase in the number of silos across an incredibly short period of time…



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