![]() ![]() And even if they were, it would not fundamentally challenge the strategic balance with an American nuclear arsenal that is still many times its size. It is unlikely that all, or even most, of the silos will be filled, at least for the time being, given limitations on China’s stockpile of fissile material. There is a caveat, however: we currently have no way to know how many of the silos will be filled with actual missiles, nor how many warheads each missile will carry. Naturally, this news sparked an outpouring of analysis of China’s intentions and whether this means an end to its longstanding policy of minimum deterrence. ![]() 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. The second site is in an earlier stage of construction but appears large enough to eventually house about 110 silos. 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. This alone was huge news, representing a sudden six-fold increase. In late June, analysts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies discovered about 120 more silos in a remote part of Gansu Province. Until recently, the PLA Rocket Force had been known to maintain about 20 silos for its liquid-fueled DF-5 ICBMs. But this dramatic imagery-notably, captured by commercial satellites-is only the most visible part of a larger growth. 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.
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