Chinese Nuclear Missile Subs Sighted by Satellite

A commercial satellite has photographed two ballistic missile submarines docked in a shipyard in China, the Federation of American Scientists said yesterday (see GSN, July 6)

In the second discovery of new Chinese ballistic missile submarines photographs in the last three months, the U.S. organization spotted the suspected Type 094 Jin-class submarines at China’s Bohai shipyard in Huludao, about 250 miles east of Beijing.

The submarines could be seen in commercial satellite images taken on May 3, 2007, and they have the same dimensions as the craft found in July 2007 in satellite imagery from October 2006 of Xiaopingdao.

However, it remains unclear whether China has entered two or three Jin-class nuclear-powered ballistic submarines into operation.  Images of the submarine photographed last year might have been captured again if it moved to Huludao to undergo repairs or maintenance.  The two new submarines might also be the second and third Jin-class submarines that China has been expected to build.

The U.S. Naval Intelligence Office said last December that “a fleet of probably five Type 094 SSBNs will be built in order to provide more redundancy and capacity for a near-continuous at-sea SSBN presence.”

China has not confirmed any plans to build five submarines, and no publicly available information has positively confirmed Beijing’s intent (Hans Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists, Oct. 4).

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