Chinese military personnel built models of a US Navy aircraft carrier and US vessels, probably for target practice.
Captured Images from Satellites
In a recently published article in MSN News, according to the USNI, a private, non-profit, professional military association, satellite images from China's northwest Xinjiang region appear to show a full-scale outline of a "Ford-class" aircraft carrier currently being built for the US Navy, as well as the shapes of at least two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers at a new target range complex in the Taklamakan Desert.
The silhouettes of a US aircraft carrier and at least one warship can be seen on a railway track in photographs obtained by Colorado-based satellite photography provider Maxar Technologies on Sunday. Ruoqiang, a Taklamakan Desert county in northeastern Xinjiang, was recognized by Maxar as the site.
Although USNI stated it had detected characteristics on the destroyer such as funnels and weapons systems, it was unclear how many specifics had been included in the putative targets based on the photographs, according to a report published in CNN News.
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China's Military Advancement To Counter Its Rivals
China's huge military upgrading has focused on confronting the naval capabilities of the United States and other nations. The development of land, sea, and air-launched missiles to resist and perhaps destroy enemy warships is shown by the ground-based DF-21D ballistic missile, dubbed the "carrier killer."
In recent months, Chinese military aircraft has increased significantly just southwest of Taiwan, the self-governing island republic that Beijing claims and threatens to seize by force. Taiwan receives most of its weapons from the United States, which is required by law to guarantee that the island can defend itself and to take threats to it as issues of "grave concern."
Furthermore, China's navy and coast guard are also building new ships at an unprecedented rate, concentrating them in the South China Sea, which China claims in its entirety where tension continues to escalate, according to a published report in The Wall Street Journal.
Pentagon's Latest Assessment on China's Military Developments
Beijing is quickly developing its arsenal and military capabilities, according to the Pentagon's newest assessment of China's military and security advancements. More than 250 ballistic missiles were fired for testing and training by the PLARF in 2020, more than the rest of the world combined.
The Pentagon report was released amid rising tensions over China's military exercises in the Pacific and came just hours after the US military's most senior general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, warned that China's military progress represented one of the world's largest shifts in global geostrategic power.
Meanwhile, Beijing claims practically the entire South China Sea as its sovereign territory and has ramped up attempts in recent years to impose supremacy over the resource-rich seas, converting a series of remote reefs and into strongly fortified man-made islands and expanding naval operations in the area, as per The Guardian reports.
Needless to say, at least five other nations oppose its territorial aspirations, and Washington has flatly rejected them. As tensions with the United States over the disputed waterway grew, China fired a series of ballistic missiles into the South China Sea in August 2020.
