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Nov 8, 2021, 8 tweets

🇨🇳 China has built detailed, life-size mock-ups of several US warships in the desert.

They are apparently using them as target practice, according to new satellite images.

Thread 🧵👇
telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…

📸 The images, captured by Colorado-based satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies, show the outlines of a full-scale US carrier and two destroyers.

➡️ One sits on a railway track suggesting it could be used as a moving target

🚢Some of the fake boats have a huge amount of detail.

The USNI identified funnels and weapons systems on one of the copies of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer

🇨🇳The structures are in Ruoqiang, northwestern Xinjiang region, according to Maxar.

The area is near a former target range China used to test early versions of its “carrier killer” DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles in 2013

This summer, the US Navy announced that its aircraft carrier Gerald R Ford successfully completed the Full Ship Shock Trials.

➡️One of the mock-up boats in the Xinjiang desert bears a striking resemblance to that boat.

AllSource Analysis said there did not appear to be any signs of weapon impact in the area around the structures.

🧠This raises the possibility that they were partly being used as psychological warfare

📸The pictures emerged as top leaders of China's ruling Communist Party started a pivotal meeting expected to further firm President Xi Jinping's grip on power

🇨🇳 Mr Xi's tenure has been marked by an increasingly assertive approach to foreign relations, as well as a sprawling anti-corruption crackdown, and repressive policies in regions like Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong

Read the full story 👇
telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…

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