Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.China\u2019s military is building a massive complex in western Beijing that US intelligence believes will serve as a wartime command centre far larger than the Pentagon, according to current and former American officials.Satellite images obtained by the Financial Times that are being examined by US intelligence show a roughly 1,500-acre construction site 30km south-west of Beijing with deep holes that military experts assess will house large, hardened bunkers to protect Chinese military leaders during any conflict \u2014 including potentially a nuclear war.Several current and former US officials said the intelligence community is closely monitoring the site, which would be the world\u2019s largest military command centre \u2014 and 10 times the size of the Pentagon.Based on an assessment of satellite images obtained by the FT, major construction started in mid-2024. Three people familiar with the situation said some intelligence analysts have dubbed the project \u201cBeijing Military City\u201d.The construction comes as the People\u2019s Liberation Army develops new weapons and projects ahead of the force\u2019s centenary in 2027. US intelligence says President Xi Jinping has also ordered the PLA to have developed the capability to attack Taiwan by then.The PLA is also rapidly expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal and working to better integrate its different branches. Military experts believe the PLA\u2019s lack of integration is among its biggest weaknesses compared to the US armed forces.\u201cIf confirmed, this new advanced underground command bunker for the military leadership, including President Xi as the chairman of the Central Military Commission, signals Beijing\u2019s intent to build not only a world-class conventional force but also an advanced nuclear warfighting capability,\u201d said Dennis Wilder, the former head of China analysis for the CIA. The Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the US intelligence community, did not comment on the project. The Chinese embassy in Washington said it was \u201cnot aware of the details\u201d but stressed that China was \u201ccommitted to the path of peaceful development and a defence policy that is defensive in nature\u201d.Renny Babiarz,\u00a0a former imagery analyst at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency who has analysed imagery of the area, said there were at least 100 cranes working over a five square kilometre area developing underground infrastructure.\u201cImagery analysis suggests the construction of several possible underground facilities linked via possible underground passageways, although additional data and information is needed to more fully assess this construction,\u201d said Babiarz, now vice-president of analysis and operations at AllSource Analysis, a geospatial analysis service group.The site in western Beijing was busy with construction activity earlier this month, in contrast to a dearth of development in most big real estate projects in China, which has been gripped by a property sector crisis. There were no showrooms typically associated with a commercial real estate project. Unusually for a commercial project, there are no official mentions of the construction site on the internet in Chinese.While there was no visible military presence at the site, there were signs warning against flying drones or taking photographs.\u00a0Guards at one gate abruptly said that entry was prohibited and refused to talk about the project. One supervisor leaving the construction site refused to comment on the project.Access to the back of the project has been blocked by a checkpoint. A guard said the public could not access popular hiking and tourist areas near the site, which a local shopkeeper described as a\u00a0\u201cmilitary area\u201d.\u00a0One former senior US intelligence official said that while the PLA\u2019s current headquarters in central Beijing was fairly new it was not designed to be a secure combat command centre.\u201cChina\u2019s main secure command centre is in the Western Hills, north-east of the new facility, and was built decades ago at the height of the cold war,\u201d said the former official. \u201cThe size, scale and partially buried characteristics of the new facility suggest it will replace the Western Hills complex as the primary wartime command facility.\u201cChinese leaders may judge that the new facility will enable greater security against US \u2018bunker buster\u2019 munitions, and even against nuclear weapons,\u201d the former intelligence official added. \u201cIt can also incorporate more advanced and secure communications and have room for expanding PLA capabilities and missions.\u201dOne China researcher familiar with the images said the site had \u201call the hallmarks of a sensitive military facility\u201d, including heavily reinforced concrete and deep underground tunnelling.\u201cNearly 10 times bigger than the Pentagon, it\u2019s fitting for Xi Jinping\u2019s ambitions to surpass the US,\u201d said the researcher. \u201cThis fortress only serves one purpose, which is to act as a doomsday bunker for China\u2019s increasingly sophisticated and capable military.\u201dThe construction of the site comes amid a multiyear redevelopment of Beijing\u2019s western outskirts. But there has been speculation online in China about why houses in the Qinglonghu area were being razed.In one post on Baidu Zhidao, the Chinese search engine\u2019s equivalent of Quora, one user said: \u201cAre they going to build the Chinese Pentagon in Qinglonghu?\u201dTwo people close to Taiwan\u2019s defence ministry also said the PLA appeared to be building a new command centre, though some experts questioned if the are was suitable for underground bunkers.\u201cThe land area is much larger than a normal military camp and military school, so it can only be assumed that it is a site for an administrative organisation or a large training base,\u201d said Hsu Yen-chi, a researcher at the Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies think-tank in Taipei.Video: Should the US ban Chinese drones?\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.China\u2019s military is building a massive complex in western Beijing that US intelligence believes will serve as a wartime command centre far larger than the Pentagon,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-187169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-tech"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}