Replicas of American warships filmed in the desert, potential training targets?

They could potentially be used as training targets for missile fire. China has built silhouettes in the middle of the desert of what appear to be replicas of American warships deployed in the Pacific.

According to images taken by the US satellite company Maxar Technologies last month, these life-size structures, including at least one in the shape of an aircraft carrier and another following the contours of a destroyer, have been spotted in the Taklamakan Desert. , in the Xinjiang region in the west of the country.

The structures would have undergone several reconstructions

One of these structures was mounted on rails, and while some appeared to be two-dimensional, others appeared to be more sophisticated, according to the United States Naval Institute (USNI).

“Analysis of the history of satellite images shows that the aircraft carrier-shaped structure was the first to be built between March and April 2019,” the institute said in a report. “It has undergone numerous reconstructions and was partly dismantled in December 2019. The site was brought back to life at the end of September of this year and the structure was substantially complete at the beginning of October”, according to this report which quotes the intelligence company AllSource Analysis for which the area has been used in the past to test ballistic missiles.

“Not aware of the situation”, according to a Chinese spokesperson

Asked about the images, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin replied on Monday that he was “not aware of the situation.” According to a Pentagon report on the Chinese military released last week, Beijing is currently working on a major effort to modernize its weaponry, with weapons capable of neutralizing US warships in the event of regional conflict. The Pentagon notably cites the DF-21D missile with a range of over 1,500 kilometers.

The Chinese army deployed these missiles during exercises, “an unambiguous message sent to world and regional opinions”, according to American admiral Philip Davidson. In March before the US Senate, he underlined how much, according to him, the use of these weapons during military exercises demonstrated the Chinese army’s desire to counter any intervention by a third force in the event of a regional crisis.

Note that the US Navy regularly conducts operations in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, which irritates Beijing, which claims sovereignty over the island.