Amid new bomber debut talk, Sat images expose China’s ‘High Security Base’; What is Xi plotting?

World

In the last few years, China has been investing a huge amount to secure military bases all around the world. India has witnessed China’s growing assertiveness in the region and how China is deploying its resources to safeguard its interest. A unique hangar and support facility has been shown on satellite imagery at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force bomber base in the eastern part of the country. 

This facility is well-built and well-protected, with several security choices. There are numerous buildings that appear to be administration offices and dormitories. The facility is also well-protected, with two layers of fencing all around, watchtowers and lights along the northern side, and gates on the taxiway just short of the apron and at the other end that lead to Luhe-Ma’an’s main runway.

This appears to be a separate facility from the main base. This facility’s construction, which is located less than 30 miles north of Nanjing, the capital of China’s eastern Jiangsu province, began around 2017. Data and imagery collected by The War Zone and then reviewed by the  Planet Labs, as well as Google Earth, indicated that the new hangar is approximately 265 feet long and 245 feet wide, as well as very tall, as three rows of large windows visible on the side facing away from the apron demonstrate.

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Satellite imagery also reveals that work on a second large site, just to the northeast of the large hangar and its apron, began in 2020. However, it is unclear if these facilities are connected to Luhe-Ma’an in any way. Though analyst didn’t find any of the direct connection between two, however noting the security parameters which is used in this facility indicates that something sensitive military technology or information is here. Pictures of WZ-8 drones with serial numbers suggesting that they were allocated to the 30th Air Regiment surfaced in September 2019, only months after the connecting taxiway was ostensibly completed.

Another probability is that this satellite extension at Luhe-Ma’an is linked to the PLAAF’s strategic nuclear mission, which was officially restored in 2017, per the United States. DIA is the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). This kind of development calls President Xi Jinping’s intentions and China’s increasing military presence in the region into doubt.