中文 (Read in Chinese)
Recent visitors to the bay surrounding a submarine base on the southern coast of China’s Hainan Island describe a curious nocturnal phenomenon. Powerful spotlights are sometimes trained directly on the ocean frontages of neighboring hotels at night, making visibility out to sea virtually impossible. Some of the lights are mounted on land and others on passing naval patrol boats.
“The effect is incredible,” said one recent visitor. “The glare is so great you can hardly stand it on the balcony. You go inside and draw the curtains tight.”
The blinding lights cannot obscure something of intense interest to the world’s military intelligence agencies: evidence that China has made a breakthrough in its drive to rival America and Russia as a nuclear arms power.
Satellite imagery reveals the regular presence of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines at the strategic base near the resort city of Sanya. Specialized surface warships and aircraft designed to protect the subs are prowling key waterways off the coast. Facilities at the base appear to have been built to store and load ballistic missiles. Antenna arrays that support the hunt for foreign submarines have appeared on Chinese-held islands in the hotly contested South China Sea. And a veteran submariner has been appointed to command Chinese forces in the south of the country.
Taken together, this means China has a force of missile submarines that can launch nuclear attacks from beneath the waves and now appear to be heading out on patrols, according to serving and retired naval officers, diplomats and security analysts. That gives Beijing something it has until recently lacked: a more reliable “second strike” capability if its land-based nuclear arsenal comes under attack.
路透社今日在一份特别报导中透露,中国在实现更可靠的二次核打击能力方面取得了重大进展,加强了吓阻陆基核武器遭攻击的威慑力。
一直到不久之前,中国还没有强大的二次核打击选项。但现在这已经有所改变,因为中国拥有多艘弹道导弹潜艇,能够发射足以击中美国的核武器。
在路透所检视的卫星图像中,可以看到中国这些进展的证据。卫星图像显示核动力弹道导弹潜艇出现在中国南部榆林战略基地。图像也显示了基地内有一些显然是为了储存和装载弹道导弹而建的设施。在中国的外海,现在可以发现用于保护潜艇的战舰和飞机进行定期巡航。而目前中国南部战区司令员便是一名资深潜艇专家。
多位现役和退役的海军军官、外交官和国防分析师告诉路透,种种迹象显示中国拥有一支定期巡航的核潜艇舰队。这是中国核威慑能力的重大进展,在中国争取匹敌美国及俄罗斯等核武大国的努力上,这也是一大突破。
本篇是路透《中国挑战》系列特别报导的一部分,此系列报导是关于中国领导人习近平对中国人民解放军雄心勃勃的改革,如何威胁到美国在亚洲主导地位。
60年来,中国一直致力于建立一支核潜艇舰队。美国国防部在去年8月的人民解放军报告中表示,北京现在拥有“可靠”和“有效”的海基核威慑力量。
目前尚不清楚中国的核潜艇是否有能力进行常态性巡航,这需要至少其中一艘潜艇始终在海上进行巡航,以确保全天候威慑。尽管如此,西方军方官员告诉路透,美国及其盟友当前的作法就如同中国确实已具备这种能力,现正试图追踪这些潜艇,展开一场水下的猫鼠竞赛,仿若冷战。
正如一名西方军事专员告诉路透社的那样:“我们正监看着他们搜寻我们。”
中国国防部,美国印度太平洋司令部和五角大楼没有回答路透社提出的问题。
Hainan
Satellite image: Google, DigitalGlobe
This is Sanya, a city at the southern end of Hainan. It is a popular vacation spot with beach resorts and hot springs. It has also hosted the Miss World competition several times since 2003.
Particularly popular is Yalong Bay, which is dotted with high-end hotels and resorts.
Just across the bay is the home base of China’s Jin-class nuclear missile submarines.
Western naval analysts say the base has extensive underground facilities, including what appears to be a submarine cave just south of where the submarines are docked.
Western security analysts believe the interior of the cave is extensive, with facilities for personnel and storage allowing submarines to be securely loaded with weapons and maintained. A decade of work to link it with nearby surface infrastructure, including a covered railway, has been completed, analysts say.
After six decades of battling to master complex and challenging subsea military technologies, China has joined the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and France in the nuclear ballistic missile submarine club. In its most explicit assessment so far of this Chinese capability, the Pentagon in its latest annual report on China’s military, published in August, said that Beijing now has a “credible” and “viable” sea-based nuclear deterrent.
The submarine nuclear deterrent club
U.S.
RUSSIA
FRANCE
1 Kalmar-class
4 Triomphant-class
14 Ohio-class
6 Delfin-class
CHINA
4 Jin-class
3 Borey-class
U.K.
4 Vanguard-class
1 Akula-class
Submarine-launched ballistic missiles
U.S.
Trident D-5
12,000 km
U.K.
Trident D-5
12,000 km
RUSSIA
SS-N-23
11,000 km
RUSSIA
8,300 km
SS-N-32
FRANCE
M51
8,000 km
CHINA
JL-2
8,000 km
RUSSIA
SS-N-18
6,500 km
Sources: The Military Balance, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS); Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
An effective fleet of nuclear ballistic missile submarines, known as SSBNs, marks a dramatic boost to China’s nuclear capabilities. Each of China’s four Jin-class submarines is armed with up to 12 ballistic missiles that can carry a nuclear warhead with an estimated range of 7,200 kilometers (about 4,500 miles), according to the Pentagon. That would put the United States within striking distance from the Western Pacific. Analysts at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies estimate these missiles could fly at least 8,000 kilometers. The U.S. believes China has up to 100 nuclear missiles based on land.
Beijing’s enhanced nuclear capability is one of the hallmarks of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s ambitious revamping of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the world’s largest fighting force. China’s nuclear submarine fleet, Western strategists say, has added to the challenge that the increasingly powerful Chinese military poses to U.S. dominance in Asia.
“The opposing side can never be exactly sure that it knows where all of the submarines are,” said Peter Horobin, a retired Australian submarine commander and veteran of the Cold War battles to detect and monitor Soviet subs.
China’s Ministry of National Defense, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and the Pentagon did not respond to questions from Reuters.
Jin-class submarine
Able to carry up to 12 JL-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles
Source: Global Security
It is still unclear if the Chinese are deploying fully armed submarines to maintain a round-the-clock deterrent, as the other ballistic missile submarine powers do. Some analysts doubt China has advanced that far.
But the United States and its allies are behaving as if China has. Western military officials say privately that in operational terms, America and its allies - including Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom - are already attempting to track the movements of China’s missile submarines as if they are fully armed and on deterrence patrols.
Asked about their role in tracking Chinese subs, Japan and the United Kingdom said they don’t comment on operational details.
“China’s military modernization is consistent with its rapid economic growth,” the Australian Department of Defense said. “As with all countries, we encourage China to be transparent about its military capabilities and strategic intentions to provide greater assurance to its neighbors.”
Growing stockpile
“An armed Jin-class SSBN will give China an important strategic capability that must be countered,” Admiral Harry Harris, then head of the U.S. Pacific Command, told a congressional committee last year.
That response appears to be happening. The United States and its allies are expanding their anti-submarine naval deployments across East Asia. This includes stepped-up patrols of America’s advanced, sub-hunting P-8 Poseidon planes out of Singapore and Japan.
Inmarsat
THE P-8 POSEIDON
Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD)
Communications antenna array
How it works
Equipment racks
Sonobuoy launchers
Can deploy more than 100 sonobuoys in a single flight for submarine detection
MAD uses a magnetometer to monitor the earth’s magnetic field under the sea.
Aerial refuelling
system
Tactical workstations
Multi-mode radar
EI/IR turret
Large metal objects, such as submarines, create variances in the magnetic field. MAD detects such variances, revealing the location of submarines.
Picks up other aircraft and surface ships. Can provide accurate information under all weather conditions in day and night
Carries digital electro-optical and infrared sensors capable of heat detection
Sources: Boeing; Northrop Grumman Corporation; Barra Sonobuoy Design
With its relatively small force of nuclear missiles, Beijing has always worried that it might be vulnerable to a debilitating first strike. These fears were magnified as Chinese military planners watched Washington employ precision-guided weapons in conflicts like the Gulf wars, Afghanistan, Syria and the Balkans.
As it strengthens and improves its nuclear arsenal, Beijing is the only major nuclear power to be adding warheads to its stockpiles. China is developing an air-launched ballistic missile and plans to build a long-range stealth bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons. With the sea-based second-strike deterrent in place, those programs suggest Beijing eventually intends to field a triad of air, sea and land-based nuclear weapons like the United States and Russia.
In the past two decades, the PLA Rocket Force, the service which controls China’s nuclear and conventional missiles, has invested heavily in expanding its stockpile of nuclear warheads and boosted the range and accuracy of the missiles that deliver them. It has also hardened the protection of its silo-based nuclear weapons, according to reports in China’s state-controlled media. The Pentagon and official Chinese military publications have reported that China has also deployed modern, road-mobile missiles that are more difficult for an adversary to find and attack.
Still, China lags far behind the United States and Russia in overall nuclear firepower. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that China has a total of 280 nuclear warheads. China does not disclose how many of its warheads are deployed and ready for conflict. The United States has 1,750 deployed warheads and Russia 1,600, the institute’s 2018 report said. The United States and Russia each have thousands more warheads held in stockpiles, according to the report.
80,000
warheads
1986
Global stockpile peaked at 64,449
60,000
Cold War
Global total
40,000
Russia
U.S.
20,000
Others (including China)
0
1945
1955
1965
1975
1985
1995
2005
2015
Note: Includes stockpiled nuclear warheads in the military arsenals only; does not include retired warheads.
Source: Federation of American Scientists (FAS)
Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project of the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists, said he had yet to see hard intelligence suggesting China had placed fully armed ballistic missiles on its submarines at sea, despite the intense activity. Just because the submarines exist, he said, “that doesn’t mean that they have the weapons aboard the vessels.”
While acknowledging that China has significantly enhanced its nuclear deterrence, the Pentagon isn’t convinced that Chinese subs are yet conducting around-the-clock patrols. In a January report, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency said the Chinese navy would need a minimum of five Jin-class submarines to maintain a continuous nuclear deterrence at sea. China now has four.
Undersea duels
A fleet of nuclear missile submarines hidden in the vast expanses of the ocean would help offset Beijing’s nuclear shortcomings, say Chinese and Western strategists.
Chinese naval designers and nuclear technicians have been working to build a force of nuclear missile submarines since the late 1950s. A single vessel was launched in the 1980s, but it was never fully operational. This submarine served as a test bed as Chinese technicians and designers struggled to overcome problems with nuclear propulsion technology, missiles and excessive noise that would have made the vessels easier for an adversary to detect and target.
To maximize its second-strike capability, China’s missile subs would need to be stealthy enough to go undetected as they sail to their patrol areas in the open ocean. U.S. and other foreign naval analysts say the Jin-class submarines are a sharp improvement over China’s earlier efforts, but they remain less stealthy than their U.S., Russian, French and British counterparts.
The 11,000-tonne Jin-class submarines are stationed on the southern coast of China’s Hainan Island, close to deep water channels leading into and out of the South China Sea.
The geography of China’s coastal waters has forced Beijing to base its missile submarines in this area, astride one of the world’s most important shipping lanes.
In the north, the Yellow Sea is too shallow to conceal big, ballistic missile submarines.
The East China Sea is deeper but it’s confined by the Korean Peninsula, Japan’s island chain and Taiwan.
And Japanese and U.S. forces can deploy advanced anti-submarine warfare ships and aircraft based in Japan to closely monitor these waters and the channels that pass out into the Western Pacific, where the submarines are ultimately headed. The Chinese need to reach these waters to be in a position to fire on the United States.
The South China Sea, by contrast, is much bigger and in parts deeper, making it more suitable for concealed submarine operations, according to Western submariners with extensive experience of patrolling in this area.
China would need to get its submarines out of Hainan, past surveillance and into seas east of the Philippines for their missiles to be in striking range of the United States.
This is a key reason why China has gone to such lengths to reclaim and fortify islands and reefs in the South China Sea that are expanding Beijing’s control over this area, according to Western submariners and military attaches.
Sources: Marine Regions, Flanders Marine Institute; U.S. Navy; United States Forces Japan; United States Forces Korea; U.S. Department of Defense; Global International Waters Assessment, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); Natural Earth
The sub fleet’s vulnerability to detection also explains China’s extreme sensitivity to the surveillance operations of the United States and its allies in these waters. A Chinese destroyer sailed within 45 meters of the American destroyer USS Decatur in late September, as the American warship patrolled in the Spratlys, a highly contested island chain where China has expanded its foothold in recent years. It was the latest in a series of close encounters in the past decade.
China now appears to be on guard against foreign subs attempting to detect and shadow its ballistic missile fleet. As China’s Jin-class vessels put to sea, they appear to be flanked by protective screens of surface warships and aircraft on station to track foreign submarines, according to military officers and analysts familiar with allied surveillance of the Chinese coast.
One of China’s Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines is seen during a military display in the South China Sea in April last year. REUTERS/Stringer
Serving and former senior naval officers also point to the extensive, frequent deployments of the Chinese navy’s latest Type 056A corvettes into key waters south of Japan and east of the Philippines. The Type 056A is China’s most advanced submarine hunter. It is able to tow sonar arrays and other listening equipment deep beneath the surface to detect enemy submarines – advanced technology that China did not have just five years ago.
China has also installed an array of sensors, antennas and satellite communications installations on islands in the Spratlys, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The PLA is tracking the foreign undersea hunters from the air, too. It has formed a squadron of Y-8GX6 aircraft on Hainan with the ability to comb vast areas of the sea surface for magnetic anomalies. The turboprop planes have already been seen landing on Woody Island, China’s key offshore holding in the South China Sea. These patrols are not the infrequent exercises of the past, but now near-constant deployments, shadowing foreign warships as well.
“We’re looking at them looking for us,” said one Western military attache.
The submarine base near Sanya is now under direct control of the Central Military Commission, the top military decision-making body, chaired by Xi Jinping himself. The new communications installations in the South China Sea have helped knit together the new command structure, allowing tighter control from Beijing, right down to individual vessels.
Dec. 20, 2018
CUARTERON REEF, SPRATLYS
Probable
radar
Possible
observation
post
Probable bunker
Lighthouse
Probable
radar
HUGHES REEF, SPRATLYS
Dec. 5, 2018
Probable
radar tower
Probable radars
Satellite images: Google, DigitalGlobe