The Chinese military has built a series of models of American fighter jets in a remote desert in the northwest of the country, apparently to use as target practice.
The copies, picked up on satellite imagery, include mock-ups of F-35 and F-22 fighter jets, among the most advanced used by the US and its allies.
They are thought likely to be low-tech additions to the comprehensive overhaul of the Chinese military overseen by President Xi since he came to power. The desert, the Taklamakan in Xinjiang province, is already home to military testing — the jets join models of an American Ford-class aircraft carrier and two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which were revealed three years ago.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was already the largest in the world in terms of numbers when Xi ascended to the Communist Party leadership in 2012. But it now has a navy that has surpassed the US in terms of crude number of ships, and is expected to be 50 per cent larger by 2035.
Although the US has a global reach beyond China’s capacity, with its 11 aircraft carrier groups, China is starting to catch up. It is believed to be planning a third sea trial later this week for its first entirely domestically designed and built aircraft carrier, the Fujian.
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Its air force is still thought to be lagging America’s though, both in numbers and in advanced avionic equipment. The main purpose of the new models is likely to be to test improvements in missile technology, an area that China has neglected over the years and whose section within the PLA, known as the rocket force, is at the heart of a corruption investigation and purge.
Judging by the satellite imagery, provided by the San Francisco-based technology firm Planet Labs, some of the targets have already been hit. They sit on a mock-up runway showing clear black marks as if struck by missiles. More jets are lined up near by. It is not clear what type of weapon caused the damage, but the scale would suggest precision missiles fired from aircraft.
The PLA is known to be testing its own competitor for the F-35, the J-35, which has not yet been deployed but is expected to be put into service on the Fujian when it is fully operational. The Fujian is China’s first aircraft carrier to be fitted with electromagnetic catapults, rather than relying on a ramp system for take-off.
• China’s military practises sealing off and attacking Taiwan
The use of the Taklamakan mock airbase and warships for target practice and recognition training are in line with analysis that China’s main military focus is on how to constrain the US navy and its carrier-based jets intervening in any conflict over Taiwan. China’s threats to one day “reunify” Taiwan with the mainland, by force if necessary, have in the past not been matched by a sufficient physical military capability.
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Military analysts assess that this will be in place by 2027, with the main obstacle the likelihood that the US will intervene to protect the island and trigger a full-blown intercontinental war. A key strategy therefore is to deter US intervention long enough for a takeover to become a fait accompli.
China’s ambitions beyond the western Pacific are less clear. Its party leadership has always denied it wants to become a world superpower of the sort that the US already is — but is clear that its preferred “multipolar world” requires America to be constrained more broadly.
While saying that it remains neutral over the Ukraine war, China is selling Russia the technology needed to resupply its army with high-tech weaponry, and has blamed America for provoking the conflict.
A new study by a US think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, claims that China is helping Cuba build new interception stations to monitor US bases, including Guantanamo Bay, which is situated on the island.
The island is also close to Florida, home to important US military facilities as well as the main US space launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and the nearby Kennedy Space Centre.
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“Collecting data on activities like military exercises, missile tests, rocket launches and submarine manoeuvres would allow China to develop a more sophisticated picture of US military practices,” the report said.
