More on China's new secret nuclear sub base at Hainan from Janes'.
Satellite images reveal China's underground nuclear submarine base | The Australian
The AustralianApril 24, 2008 12:08am AEST Satellite images reveal China's underground nuclear submarine base Rowan Callick, China correspondent | April 24, 2008
CHINA is building a large underground nuclear submarine base at its sub-tropical Hainan Island, says Jane's Information Group, specialists in military intelligence.
Jane's says it was first informed by Asian defence sources about the construction of the base five years ago, but has now been able to confirm this through high-resolution, newly commercially available satellite imagery.
The Chinese navy has rapidly acquired a blue-water capacity. It has 57 submarines, five of them nuclear-powered, with many of them equipped with Yingji-8 anti-ship cruise missiles that they can launch while still submerged.
It underlined this capacity 18 months ago when a 75m long Song S20 class vessel, built in the Wuhan shipyard, with unusually quiet German diesel engines, suddenly surfaced in the middle of an American battle fleet.
The submarine appeared within 8km of the US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, in international waters not far from Japan's southern island of Okinawa.
The new Yulin submarine base is located near Sanya, a fast developing resort centre on the south of Hainan. It was at Sanya where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and China's President Hu Jintao met 12 days ago.
The island, half the size of Tasmania, is best known for tourism and tropical fruit, and has also hosted most of the recent Miss World contests.
It is about 200km from the Vietnam coast. Jane's says the extent of construction revealed by the DigitalGlobe imagery indicates Yulin could become a key base for aircraft carriers and other large surface craft, as well as for submarines.
The first type 094 second-generation nuclear ballistic missile submarine was shifted there last December.
Jane's says such a base has implications "for China's control of the South China Sea and the strategically vital straits in the area, and underlines Beijing's desire to assert tighter control over this region".
Typically, China has offered no public explanation of this development, which has strategic implications for the hotly disputed Spratly Islands - believed to be oil-rich - within the South China Sea where China and Vietnam have the most extensive claims, as well as for the busy shipping lanes between Europe, Southeast Asia and North Asia, and for Taiwan, 900km north-east of Hainan.
And Jane's adds: "China's increasing dependence on imported petroleum and mineral resources has contributed to an intensified concern about defending its access to vital sea lanes, particularly to its south."
Taiwan's National Security Council recently reported that the number of tactical ballistic missiles deployed by China against it had reached more than 1400 at the start of this year, augmented by more than 190 cruise missiles.
The council said China's navy, with more than 1000 vessels and 250,000 personnel, was acquiring the capacity to blockade Taiwan.
Taiwan is itself set to spend $12.3billion on eight diesel-electric attack submarines that it would buy from the US, although selection of the prime contractor would probably take a further 15 months. A decision on that purchase is expected shortly after the May 20 inauguration of Taiwan's new president, Ma Ying-jeou.
Taiwan already has two Dutch-built Hai-lung (Sea Dragon) submarines, and two former US World War II-era submarines that are used only for training.
A report produced earlier this month by Asian Security Affairs specialist Shirley Kan for the US Congressional Research Service said: "The People's Liberation Army has continued to build up its forces that threaten Taiwan, raising the question of whether the military balance already has shifted to favour China."
If Mr Ma's Kuomintang party negotiates a withdrawal of the missiles targeting Taiwan, says the report, Taiwan's own "military deployments and missile programs could be subject to China's demands".
PS:How German engines are aboard a Chinese sub is intriguing.It indicates China's dexterity and ingenuity in foraging for suitable technology and we must keep in mind inevitable transfers to Pak.
China builds N-submarine base - Newindpress.com
China builds N-submarine base
Friday May 2 2008 01:38 IST
The Daily Telegraph
LONDON: China has secretly built a major underground nuclear submarine base that could threaten Asian countries and challenge American power in the region.
Satellite imagery, passed to The Daily Telegraph, shows that a harbour has been built which could house a score of nuclear ballistic missile submarines and a host of aircraft carriers.
In what will be a significant challenge to US Navy dominance and to countries ringing the South China Sea, one photograph shows Chinas latest 094 nuclear submarine at the base just a few hundred miles from its neighbours.
Other images show numerous warships moored to long jettys and a network of underground tunnels at the Sanya base on the southern tip of Hainan island.
Of greater concern to the Pentagon are tunnel entrances, about 60ft high, built into hillsides around the base. Sources fear they could lead to caverns capable of hiding up to 20 nuclear submarines from spy satellites.
The US Department of Defence has estimated that China will have five 094 nuclear submarines operational by 2010 with each capable of carrying 12 JL-2 nuclear missiles.
The images were obtained by Janes Intelligence Review after it was given access to imagery from the satellite company DigitalGlobe.
Analysts for the military magazine say the base could be used for expeditionary as well as defensive operations and would allow the submarines to break out to launch locations closer to the US. It would now be difficult to ignore that China was building a major naval base where it could house its nuclear forces and increase its strategic capability considerably further afield.
Analysts believe Chinas build up of its forces is gaining pace but has remained hidden from the world in the build up to the Olympics. The location of the base will also give the submarines access to very deep water exceeding 5,000 metres within a few miles, making them even harder to detect.
Two 950 m piers and three smaller ones would be enough to accommodate two carrier strike groups or amphibious assault ships.
Editor for Janes Intelligence Review said the complex underlined Beijings plan to assert tighter control over this region. So far China has offered no public explanation for its building at Sanya.
Telegraph article in full with pic of underground tunnel entrnce for subs.Click on the pic to see further details of the anchorage,base,jetties,and tunnel entrances for subs and missiles.
Chinese nuclear submarine base - Telegraph
Analysis: China's nuclear secret exposed
By Richard Spencer in Beijing
China bills the tropical island of Hainan as a new Hawaii. Its sparkling beaches are lined by hotels patronised by western expatriates, Russian package tours and China's new middle classes.
Sanya, the town on its southern tip, is best known for hosting Miss World in recent years. But right next door, China's forward-looking naval strategists are putting a different vision of international relations into effect.
Of all China's technological deficits with the West, the one that hurts most acutely is its military dominance by the United States - and above all the fact that even off its own coast America rules the waves.
No programme has been more important to the People's Liberation Army in the last decade than the development of new submarines.
The issue of aircraft carriers is more complex - China has no realistic hope of matching America's 11, and although many analysts claim it is currently trying to build one this is by no means certain.
But its strategists believe that under the principle of asymmetric warfare the presence of advanced submarines in the western Pacific is enough to ensure their first goal - deterring the United States from intervening should they decide to invade Taiwan.
No occupant of the White House, they argue, would risk losing a US aircraft carrier to torpedoes or submarine-launched missiles for the sake of an island so far away from the concerns of the American people.
Beyond Taiwan, a "blue-water fleet" characterised by nuclear-powered submarines with or without aircraft carriers could stretch itself further, to protect shipping routes in south-east Asia. Its economy is increasingly dependent on oil supplies from the Middle East and Africa, as well as its huge export industry.
Of most concern to its immediate neighbours, though, are the waters in the immediate vicinity of Hainan. The South China Sea is dotted with small islands disputed by a number of countries - the Spratleys are claimed not only by China, but Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, and Taiwan.
Their current value is small, but their potential, if rumours of underwater oil fields prove to be vindicated, is large.
Further afield there are China's even more sensitive relations with Japan to consider: the sea border between the two is also disputed, and also crosses a natural gas field.
In November 2006, a Chinese home-built Song-class diesel submarine suddenly surfaced, undetected, in the middle of a US battle group off Japan. It was a clear warning that its naval weakness could not be taken for granted.
China's navy is still dwarfed by America's, and will be for years if not decades to come. But in the light of events in Iraq, it knows that in any coming confrontation the psychology of threat is as important as actual size.