Geospatial analysis of satellite imagery taken between 2022 and 2026 has identified a significant expansion of secretive nuclear weapons facilities in Sichuan Province in southwest China, The New York Times reported on Sunday. The findings, shared by geospatial intelligence expert Renny Babiarz, indicate that China’s nuclear buildup has accelerated since 2019, marking a pivot in the country’s strategic capabilities.
At a site known as Zitong in Sichuan, imagery reveals newly built bunkers and ramparts in a valley setting. A newly constructed complex at the location contains extensive piping infrastructure, which analysts say is consistent with facilities that handle hazardous materials. Experts cited in the analysis assess that the bunkers are likely being used to conduct high-explosives testing — a process used to refine the chemical detonators that compress nuclear material in a warhead.
“You have a layer of high explosives and the shock wave at the same time implodes into the center. This needs blast tests to perfect them,” Hui Zhang, a physicist who researches China’s nuclear programmes at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University and who examined Babiarz’s findings, told NYT.
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Satellite images also show continued activity at a double-fenced facility known as Pingtong, also located in Sichuan. The site includes a main structure marked by a 360-foot-high ventilation stack, where experts believe China is making plutonium-packed cores of nuclear warheads, according to NYT.
Imagery indicates that the structure has undergone refurbishment in recent years, including the addition of new vents and heat-dispersion features. Additional construction is visible adjacent to the main building.
Babiarz told NYT that the architectural layout of the Pingtong complex resembles facilities used in other countries to produce nuclear warhead pits — the plutonium cores that initiate a nuclear explosion.
