China embarks on construction of vast new military complex

03 February 2025

China is set to start building a huge new military complex outside Beijing that could be up to 10 times larger than the Pentagon in the US.

Soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army Soldiers of China’s People’s Liberation Army (Image: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

That’s according to a report in the Financial Times, based on information from satellite imagery company Planet Labs.

Planet Labs has captured images of a construction site spread across a 6-square-kilometre (2.3-square-mile) area, 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) southwest of Beijing.

A former US intelligence official told the newspaper that the facility is likely to be a new secure command centre, complete with partially buried bunker structures, that would replace the Cold War-era Western Hills command centre, as the People’s Liberation Army becomes more sophisticated.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said it was “not aware of the details” of the facility, where up to 100 cranes are currently thought to be in operation.

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