chinese sub base

In a recent report, commercially available satellite images, of the quality (objects three feet in size can be identified) once only seen by classified and advanced military organizations, are forcing the U.S. military to acknowledge various elements of China’s secret military buildup. For example, these photos make visible for the first time a secret underwater submarine tunnel.

A Pentagon official said in response, on condition of anonymity, “The Chinese have a whole network of secret facilities that the U.S. government understands but cannot make public. This is the first public revelation of China’s secret buildup.”

Washington Times journalist Bill Gertz, in describing the photos, stated that they were taken from 2000 to 2004, and show China’s Xia-class ballistic missile submarine docked at the Jianggezhuang base, located on the Yellow Sea in Shandong province. Nuclear warheads for the submarine’s 12 JL-1 missiles are thought to be stored inside an underwater tunnel that was photographed about 450 meters to the northwest of the submarine. The high-resolution satellite photo shows a waterway leading to a ground-covered facility.

Recently, U.S. intelligence agencies produced a National Intelligence Estimate (major analysis) that concluded China is using strategic deception to fool the United States and other nations about its goals and programs, including its military buildup.
Source: The World Tribune; Washington Times

Additional Info courtesy of  The Nuclear Information Project
Jianggezhuang will likely also become the homeport for China’s Type 094-Class second-generation ballistic missiles submarine. The first unit is under construction at the Huludao Shipyard approximately 315 miles north of the base and may become operational toward the end of the decade. The Type 094 will carry the Julang-2, a modified version of the land-based DF-31 with a range of up to 8,000 kilometers. If the Type 094 design is successful, China will probably build a few more in an attempt to establish a modest sea-based leg to its nuclear posture.

In February 1966, Mao, ever concerned to protect the country’s defenses from air raids, urged the navy to ‘build more shelters’ for its ships in man-made caves. ‘In building [such] shelters you do not have to adopt underwater operations,’ he wrote. ‘You can begin by digging a vertical shaft just like the miners do. Then dig through the rock horizontally to let seawater in. After that, add a hardened cover over the shaft.’ At this, the navy embarked on a search for a place where the nation might ’shelter its submarines.’

About two years later, Mao approved the navy’s choice of an inlet near Qingdao. And ordered the building to commence. The navy immediately transferred several engineering regiments to work on the project’s first phase, and they proceeded to remove 810,000 cubic meters of rock and to pour 200,000 cubic meters of concrete. The gigantic sea cave completed, construction crews then installed 17,000 pieces of equipment and laid 220 km of pipeline, much of it related to maintaining nuclear power plants. By the mid-1970s, the concealed base was camouflaged and hardened against attack and made ready to receive the first nuclear boat, nuclear boat No. 401. In 1975, the navy authorized the North China Sea Fleet to form the Nuclear Submarine Flotilla. Apparently subs can even transit from the sea into the cave-like base, load missiles and exit thru another passage into a different tunnel to the other seaside of the main naval base. This just sounds sooo Bondish, Chinese admirals, undersea bases, secret tunnels. Just imagine what it looks like for a huge sub to travel an underwater tunnel into the ocean. Man, whoda thought it?