US defence experts say China has probably started building a new missile silo site, suggesting that Beijing is pursuing an even more rapid nuclear build-up than previously assumed.
The findings are set to stoke US fears that Beijing could be abandoning its “minimum deterrence” strategy of only keeping an atomic arsenal large enough to retaliate against a nuclear attack.
“By mid-May 2021, the People’s Liberation Army likely began construction of a potential intercontinental ballistic missile silo site in Hanggin Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia,” Roderick Lee, research director at the China Aerospace Studies Institute, an organisation backed by the US Air and Space Force, wrote in a note published on Thursday.
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