🇨🇳 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.
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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
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telegraph.co.uk/world-news/202…
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