Overview
- Reuters’ May 29, 2026 satellite-image analysis shows a desert network centered on octagon-shaped bases and more than 80 concrete pads linked by roads, railheads and airfields near the Hami silo fields.
- The octagons include housing for personnel and large vehicles and sit beside armored bunkers, weapons storage and what appear to be satellite dishes and tall towers that may support command, control and communications.
- Analysts who reviewed the imagery say the pads could host mobile missile launchers, air-defence batteries, electronic-warfare nodes or road-mobile ICBM launchers, but they caution the exact weapons and any warhead-handling facilities are not verified.
- Recent images show military exercises with large vehicles and temporary camps in April and May, which analysts say indicate the sites are moving toward operational use even as Beijing declined to comment.
- U.S. officials have warned China is rapidly expanding its nuclear forces and the Pentagon projects roughly 1,000 warheads by 2030, a shift that could alter crisis dynamics and make U.S. targeting of China’s land-based deterrent more difficult.