Ship ahoy ... the two Chinese Jin Class submarines docked at the Bohai shipyard at Huludao, 400 km east of Beijing. Insets: The first Jin class sub; an Ohio-class US sub in transit and another Ohio class ballistic missile submarine in dry dock in Bangor, Washington state.Photo: Google Earth
Stephen Hutcheon
October 12, 2007 - 2:01PM
Updated satellite imagery on Google Earth has revealed new evidence of China's nuclear submarine capability.
The discovery of what appears to be a second and possibly a third Jin class nuclear-powered submarine at a naval shipyard in north-eastern China has set armchair admirals' tongues wagging.
The find - the latest in a series of submersibles to surface on Google Earth and other online mapping services - was the work of Hans Kristensen, an analyst and blogger for the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
Kristensen is the same man who discovered the first publicly available pictures of the secret Jin class Chinese submarine on Google Earth in July.
(The FAS is a non-profit organisation comprising scientists who believe they have an ethical obligation to share their knowledge with the public and influence government policy.)
"The significance of this lies in the fact that China has never before had an operational sea-based deterrent," said Sam Roggeveen, the blog editor at the Lowy Institute think tank and a former senior analyst at the Office of National Assessment.
The two submarines popped up on Google Earth after the the most recent imagery update. The photo was taken by a commercial satellite on May 3, 2007, according to Kristensen.
Before that update, images of the Bohai shipyard at Huludao - about 400km east of Beijing - showed an empty dock surrounded by ice floe.
Kristensen writes that it is unclear whether both of the subs in the updated image are new or whether one is the earlier vessel he revealed in July.
"The rapid launch of two or three Jin class [submarines] indicate that the Chinese navy feels confident it has overcome at least some of the technical problems that curtailed the Xia [an earlier model]," he writes.
According to published US intelligence reports, China is believed to be building five of these new submarines that have a capacity to launch ballistic nuclear missiles with a range of more than 8000km.
When operational, the subs would for the first time give China a seaborne nuclear deterrent and place Hawaii and Alaska in range from anything fired from within Chinese territorial waters.
Updated satellite imagery on Google Earth has revealed new evidence of China's nuclear submarine capability.
The discovery of what appears to be a second and possibly a third Jin class nuclear-powered submarine at a naval shipyard in north-eastern China has set armchair admirals' tongues wagging.
The find - the latest in a series of submersibles to surface on Google Earth and other online mapping services - was the work of Hans Kristensen, an analyst and blogger for the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
Kristensen is the same man who discovered the first publicly available pictures of the secret Jin class Chinese submarine on Google Earth in July.
(The FAS is a non-profit organisation comprising scientists who believe they have an ethical obligation to share their knowledge with the public and influence government policy.)
"The significance of this lies in the fact that China has never before had an operational sea-based deterrent," said Sam Roggeveen, the blog editor at the Lowy Institute think tank and a former senior analyst at the Office of National Assessment.
The two submarines popped up on Google Earth after the the most recent imagery update. The photo was taken by a commercial satellite on May 3, 2007, according to Kristensen.
Before that update, images of the Bohai shipyard at Huludao - about 400km east of Beijing - showed an empty dock surrounded by ice floe.
Kristensen writes that it is unclear whether both of the subs in the updated image are new or whether one is the earlier vessel he revealed in July.
"The rapid launch of two or three Jin class [submarines] indicate that the Chinese navy feels confident it has overcome at least some of the technical problems that curtailed the Xia [an earlier model]," he writes.
According to published US intelligence reports, China is believed to be building five of these new submarines that have a capacity to launch ballistic nuclear missiles with a range of more than 8000km.
When operational, the subs would for the first time give China a seaborne nuclear deterrent and place Hawaii and Alaska in range from anything fired from within Chinese territorial waters.
"It's the standard belief that you need at least four [nuclear-armed]submarines in order to have one operational at any time - that's what the French and British do," said the Lowy Institute's Roggeveen.
The new images of the Chinese subs are the latest in a recent string of submarine sightings on free online mapping services.
Last month, Dan Twohig - who works as a deck officer on a ferry service - stumbled across an aerial image of a US nuclear-powered submarine in dry dock showing its secret seven-bladed propeller.
Twohig was looking for a new home on Microsoft's Virtual Earth mapping service - which is similar to Google Earth - when he spotted the Ohio class submarine in dry dock at the Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Washington state.
The latest Google Earth imagery update has also revealed another Ohio class nuclear sub - this one travelling through the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the waterway that separates the US and Canada on the west coast of the North American continent.
