New Delhi:
Satellite images first published in a detailed New York Times report indicate the possible reactivation of China's Lop Nur nuclear test facility in the remote Xinjian Autonomous Region in the country's northwest.
The images, which have now been obtained by NDTV, appear to indicate that China will soon be in a position to conduct full-fledged nuclear tests or possibly subcritical nuclear explosions. Subcritical experiments simulate nuclear explosions using chemical explosives.
A move by China to ramp up nuclear testing would signal Beijing's interest in testing and qualifying some of its latest warhead designs, fitted to a host of new-generation ballistic and cruise missiles.
The New York Times analysis is based on evidence from Dr. Renny Babiarz, a leading international expert in geospatial intelligence. Dr. Barbiarz, a former Pentagon analyst, has spent years studying satellite images of the Lop Nur facility where China conducted its first nuclear tests on October 16, 1964.
“The activity at Lop Nur comes at one of the most sensitive times in US-China relations,” says The New York Times. “President Biden has said he is trying to 'stabilize' an increasingly contentious relationship and sought some measure of agreement during a summit meeting last month with Xi Xinping, the Chinese leader.”
China, for its part, has dismissed the report, saying it was “clinging to shadows and baselessly invoking a 'Chinese nuclear threat'.”
The images of Lop Nur in recent years show a process of modernization of the facility.
“By 2017, an old site with a handful of buildings had been transformed into a sleek, ultra-modern complex surrounded by security fences,” says The New York Times. “The new structures included a bunker protected by earthen berms and lightning rods, making it ideal for handling explosives.”
Significantly, the images show the construction of a new air base in the area, the construction of multiple shafts in hillside features and perhaps the smoking cannon – a large oil rig that was almost 30 meters high.
A recent image obtained by Dr. Babiarz showed “not only the derrick, but also a stack of drill pipes and an adjacent well with lubricating fluid to move the drill even deeper.” Dr. Babiarz estimates that the borehole was intended to go “at least a third of a mile down,” which is comparable in depth to vertical shafts built by the US at its Nevada test site.
The images also show a mini-township, believed to be a support facility for activities in Lop Nur. Within the community, known as Malan, is a drilling rig that appears to be identical to the one at the Lop Nur site, which is hundreds of kilometers away. This is thought to be “a training ground for shaft borers”.
China's Missile Force, a key elite part of its military arsenal, controls Beijing's nuclear triad of nuclear missiles launched from the air, sea and land. It operates under an integrated command and control system and is in the midst of a radical expansion.
A report from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey says: “The current expansion of China's missile forces suggests a possible departure from China's previously restrained second-strike nuclear posture toward one capable of deterring multi-level conflict and increased shift toward nuclear warfare.”
The report also says that just over a decade ago, China possessed about fifty intercontinental ballistic missiles. “The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force is now on track to deploy more than 1,000 ballistic missile launchers by 2028, including at least 507 nuclear-capable launchers.”
For India, which imposed a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing after the 1998 Pokhran tests, any Chinese attempt to reactivate its Lop Nur area will undoubtedly have a profound impact on regional security.
India, which has a much more modest nuclear arsenal than China, carried out a series of five nuclear explosions in May 2008, the second of its tests after the first in 1974. While these achieved their primary goal of giving India the ability to generate nuclear fission and thermonuclear devices, India is now forced to rely on computer simulations to predict the yields of any nuclear weapons it designs.
Of all countries known to have nuclear weapons, only Pakistan has conducted fewer nuclear weapons tests. The Army Control Association says the US conducted 1,030 tests between 1945 and 2017, the USSR/Russia 715 and France 210, while China and the United Kingdom each conducted 45 tests.
Pakistan detonated two nuclear weapons in counter-tests after India's Pokhran explosions in 1998, while North Korea, the newest entrant to the nuclear weapons club, is said to have conducted six tests.