China builds second site that could accommodate more than 100 ICBM missile silos

Just three weeks ago, American researchers demonstrated the construction of a site in northern China, near the city of Yumen, on which 119 silos are currently being built intended to receive Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles, or ICBMs. Despite the weak Chinese denials, and the attempt by some state media to denigrate the 2 researchers behind this discovery and to present this huge site as a new wind farm, the Western intelligence community quickly row to the analysis made. While Beijing already has around a hundred mobile ICBMs, and 12 silos for ICBM DF-5B, the construction of this site naturally raised awareness in the West as to Beijing's desire to come and play its role fully in the West. top of the hierarchy of nuclear nations.

However, it seems that Beijing's ambitions go beyond this first site. Indeed, Federation of American Scientists released new analysis for second site, located some 380 km northwest of the first, which also presents, on the basis of available satellite photos, the same configuration, and on which similar work has been observed. And if the images only show the current construction of 19 silos, the projection made by the American researchers shows, quite convincingly, that the new site will also exceed 100 silos, which would, moreover, allow the China to overtake Russia in the field of ICBMs if all the silos were to be effectively equipped with missiles, and to bring the Sino-Russian pair to a firepower equivalent to that of the United States in this same field.

According to US experts, the choice of these two sites makes a lot of sense from a strategic point of view, since the silos thus positioned would be beyond the reach of conventional American systems, such as cruise missiles for example. Therefore, the only threat that could actually weigh on these weapons would come from American ICBM and SLBM ballistic missiles, or even from French and British SLBMs, ie weapons beyond the strategic threshold. In addition, they believe, probably rightly, that these new silos will be armed with solid-fuel ballistic missiles, like the new DF-41 which already equips China's mobile strategic battalions, and not liquid-fueled missiles like the DF -5, whose pre-launch fuel supply delays expose it to pre-emptive strikes.

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