Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

China’s 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 — including potentially a nuclear war.

Several current and former US officials said the intelligence community was closely monitoring the site, which would be the world’s largest military command centre — and at least 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 had dubbed the project “Beijing Military City”.

The construction comes as the People’s Liberation Army develops new weapons and projects ahead of the force’s centenary in 2027. US intelligence said President Xi Jinping had 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’s lack of integration is among its biggest weaknesses compared with the US armed forces.

“If confirmed, this new advanced underground command bunker for the military leadership, including President Xi as the chairman of the Central Military Commission, signals Beijing’s intent to build not only a world-class conventional force but also an advanced nuclear warfighting capability,” 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 “not aware of the details” but stressed that China was “committed to the path of peaceful development and a defence policy that is defensive in nature”.

Renny Babiarz, a 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 5 sq km area developing underground infrastructure.

“Imagery 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,” said Babiarz, now vice-president of analysis and operations at AllSource Analysis, a geospatial analysis service group.

The site 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. Guards 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 “military area”. 

One former senior US intelligence official said that while the PLA’s current headquarters in central Beijing was fairly new it was not designed to be a secure combat command centre.

“China’s 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,” said the former official. “The size, scale and partially buried characteristics of the new facility suggest it will replace the Western Hills complex as the primary wartime command facility.

“Chinese leaders may judge that the new facility will enable greater security against US ‘bunker buster’ munitions, and even against nuclear weapons,” the former intelligence official added. “It can also incorporate more advanced and secure communications and have room for expanding PLA capabilities and missions.”

One China researcher familiar with the images said the site had “all the hallmarks of a sensitive military facility”, including heavily reinforced concrete and deep underground tunnelling.

“Nearly 10 times bigger than the Pentagon, it’s fitting for Xi Jinping’s ambitions to surpass the US,” said the researcher. “This fortress only serves one purpose, which is to act as a doomsday bunker for China’s increasingly sophisticated and capable military.”

The construction of the site comes amid a multi-year redevelopment of Beijing’s 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’s equivalent of Quora, one user said: “Are they going to build the Chinese Pentagon in Qinglonghu?”

Two people close to Taiwan’s defence ministry also said the PLA appeared to be building a new command centre, though some experts questioned if the area was suitable for underground bunkers.

“The 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,” said Hsu Yen-chi, a researcher at the Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies think-tank in Taipei.