Satellite images show China is making substantial progress in building hundreds of missile silos (underground storage) that could potentially be used to launch nuclear weapons.
This was conveyed by researchers from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a non-profit organization founded by the scientists who worked on the first atomic bomb.
"For China, this is an unprecedented nuclear buildup," researchers Matt Korda and Hans Kristensen wrote in their study, as quoted by Business Insider.
Reportedly in June and July, China appeared to be building two missile silo fields in the Xinjiang desert to house a network of 229 underground silos. Such silos typically house intercontinental ballistic missiles or long-range weapons designed to deliver nuclear payloads.
"This silo will increase China's nuclear capacity to 845 warheads," the scientists said at the time.
Now, after analyzing hundreds of satellite images, FAS researchers have increased the estimate for the total number of silos to 300.
They said, with 300 underground silos and about 100 mobile missile launchers, China's total intercontinental ballistic power could surpass that of Russia or America in the future.
"What stands out, of course, is its scale and speed which is very out of sync with what China has done with missile silos before," Kristensen said.
But in their report, the researchers added there was no indication as to what China had planned with the silos or how many of them would be armed in the end.
The researchers analyzed four main areas of the desert for signs of silo construction. They observed semicircular silo wall structures, silo hatches, and what they suspected was a missile loading operation.
"Based on the features we were able to examine on the new satellite imagery, we are increasingly convinced that the facility is indeed a missile silo and support facility under construction," Kristensen and Korda wrote.
Researchers looked at dozens of shelters they say China is using to protect silos from environmental damage and obscure the construction from aerial view. They note that most of these shelters are slightly smaller than the size of a football field.
"China, which implements a 'no first-use policy' for nuclear weapons, has not officially confirmed or denied the facilities it observes as silos," wrote Kristensen and Korda.
Meanwhile, China's nuclear experts denied reports of a nuclear base being built, and another expert named Song Zhongping, a former Chinese People's Liberation Army instructor, said nuclear silos were out of date.
Last month, the Beijing-based government also denied a Financial Times report that claimed it was testing a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile.