China has erected two mysterious “rectangles” in the middle of the desert that point to Taiwan

Aerial photographs played a decisive role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was the images taken by American spy planes that revealed the installation of launch ramps Soviet forces on the island and unleashed one of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War. Since then, many of the great military advances have begun as a handful of strange shapes detected from the air long before there was official confirmation.

Two rectangles that don’t fit. The latest images from the Chinese base of Jilantai, in Inner Mongolia, have focused on two mysterious structures Hardened rectangular with retractable roofs. The facility is not just any base: since the late 2010s it has been one of the main centers testing and expansion of China’s new ICBM silos.

Precisely for this reason, the appearance of two constructions that do not resemble the known silos has aroused enormous interest among military analysts.

The dimensions point to another very different mission. He prepared report by analyst Eli Tirk argues that these structures are too small and shallow to house intercontinental ballistic missiles like the DF-31 either DF-41. “These structures appear to be shallower than the silos intended for intercontinental ballistic missiles,” explains.

Its dimensions, therefore, fit better with smaller weapons, such as short and medium range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or even hypersonic systems. like the DF-17. Although there is still no official confirmation about their function, the measurements, the design of the roofs and their configuration clearly differentiate them from the nuclear silos that China has built during the last few years.

The great hypothesis looks at Taiwan. They remembered the TWZ analysts that the explanation that is gaining the most weight is that Beijing is developing a new rapid conventional attack capability. Instead of serving as a nuclear deterrent, these facilities would allow launching large quantities of missiles during the early stages of a crisis to saturate enemy defenses.

According to the tirk reporta massive deployment of this type of launchers could facilitate a rapid escalation from a naval blockade to a campaign of attacks against targets in Taiwan, US bases located in the first island chain or even naval groups deployed in the region.

An infrastructure designed to survive. Regardless of the type of missile they can house, the design reflects a trend that is spreading through the Chinese armed forces. The retractable roofs They allow launch systems to be kept hidden until the last moment and protected against precision attacks or drones.

Researchers believe they could be part of a vertical launch system capable of using different types of ammunition from the same platform, increasing flexibility and reducing the time needed to execute consecutive attacks.

It is not an isolated case. These new structures add to a much broader process of hardening of the chinese military facilities that we have been counting. During the last years have appeared hundreds of new silos for nuclear missiles, reinforced shelters for aircraft, completely closed hangars and protected facilities both inside the country and in strategic areas near the border with India or the South China Sea.

The war in Ukraine and the growing prominence of drones have reinforced the need to protect any fixed infrastructure against increasingly cheaper and more precise attacks.

A mystery far from being solved. The own authors of the report They recognize that there are still many unknowns. It is possible that these structures have a different function, that they are related to testing of new systems or even that they hide underground facilities deeper than the available images show.

However, satellite photographs have been enough to put on the table an idea that is difficult to ignore: China appears to be building a new generation of military facilities that do not seek only to increase its arsenal, but to accelerate the speed with which it could use it in a hypothetical conflict.

As Tirk ditch at work“if built in sufficient numbers, these systems would allow the Chinese military to quickly move from a quarantine or blockade of Taiwan to a massive campaign of preparatory strikes against targets on the island, US bases in the first island chain, or US naval groups.”

Image | Google, China Aerospace Studies Institute

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