After US bunker-buster strikes exposed the vulnerability of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, China is moving to bury its own critical assets deeper underground.
This month, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Chinese energy experts have suggested the construction of an extensive network of underground infrastructure across western China to protect strategic energy and defense assets amid rising geopolitical tensions and global instability, according to a proposal published in February in the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Zhang Shishu, chief technical expert at state-owned Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina), said critical facilities—including hydropower hubs in the southwest and oil and gas fields in the northwest—should be embedded deep underground to store resources such as oil, natural gas, and rare metals while shielding them from potential military strikes or surveillance.
The plan envisions a tiered system linking large central storage hubs with smaller regional depots and border facilities, particularly in sensitive frontier regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang, forming what researchers describe as an “underground strategic corridor and covert support system” to strengthen national defense and border security.
The proposal aligns with China’s broader strategy of shifting key industries and infrastructure away from vulnerable coastal economic centers such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen toward interior “strategic hinterlands” to reduce risks from supply-chain disruptions, blockades, or military conflict with the US and its allies.
Advances in ultra-deep drilling and geological monitoring now make projects reaching depths of 3,000 meters technically feasible. However, complex geology, fragile ecosystems, and fragmented legal frameworks remain major challenges.
China’s push to expand underground infrastructure reflects a broader strategic trend: as precision strike weapons increasingly threaten the survivability of exposed military and industrial assets, states are seeking protection through deeper burial, dispersion and hardened subterranean facilities.
The US attack on Iran’s underground nuclear sites during Operation Midnight Hammer highlighted both the growing importance—and the emerging limits—of this strategy.
As noted by John Van Oudenaren in a February 2026 China Aerospace Studies Institute (CASI) report, Chinese state media and analysts expressed unease at the operation’s demonstration of the US ability to conduct undetected long-range precision strikes against hardened underground targets.
In line with that, dispersion may help China mitigate the threat of such attacks on sensitive stockpiles, military assets, and infrastructure by relocating them from vulnerable coastal areas to secure inland regions.
Xiaoke Qi notes in a June 2025 CASI report that China’s “strategic hinterland” concept designates inland regions as protected rear areas supporting wartime resilience and national defense.
In addition to Tibet and Xinjiang, Qi mentions Sichuan as a possible such area. He notes that these areas are geographically safer because they are “located in a relatively safe inland region protected by natural geographical barriers,” noting that in the case of Sichuan, the mountainous enclosure of the Sichuan Basin can hinder air strikes, missile attacks, surveillance, and large-scale invasion.
Similarly, Tibet and Xinjiang’s distance from the Chinese coastal heartland, with Tibet’s rugged mountainous terrain and high altitude and Xinjiang’s large size providing strategic depth, makes these areas ideal strategic rear positions against threats from the coast and, in the case of Xinjiang, an effective buffer zone against threats from Central Asia.
This logic extends to China’s command and nuclear infrastructure. Cindy Hurst, in a 2025 article for the US Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO), describes “Beijing Military City” as a massive underground wartime command complex being built southwest of Beijing that could become one of the world’s largest military command centers.
Hurst notes that the 6-square-kilometer underground facility – ten times the size of the US Pentagon – is believed to house an advanced underground command bunker for China’s top leadership, including the Central Military Commission (CMC) and President Xi Jinping.
She notes that it is designed to maintain command and control during nuclear war or high-intensity conflict, replacing the older Western Hills command center while providing greater protection against US precision “bunker-buster” weapons and possibly even nuclear attacks.
Beyond Beijing Military City, Hans Kristensen and other writers note in a March 2025 report for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that China has a central hardened nuclear warhead storage complex in the Qinling Mountains in Shaanxi, overseen by People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) Base 67, alongside smaller regional storage sites near operational missile brigades.
Kristensen and others also highlight several major missile deployment areas, including the Yumen silo field in Gansu, Hami in Xinjiang, and Yulin near Ordos in Inner Mongolia, which host large numbers of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos and support facilities. In addition, they say Lop Nur remains China’s primary nuclear testing site, with new tunnels and underground facilities observed.
James Acton notes in a December 2024 article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Strategic Studies that some command posts used to shelter national leaders – most likely Beijing Military City – are buried as deep as 700 meters. Acton says that at that depth, even nuclear earth-penetrating weapons would struggle to destroy the facility.
Regarding the depth of China’s nuclear missile silos, Jason Faust estimates in a May 2022 Tearline article that they may have a minimum depth of 25 meters, based on an estimated DF-41 ICBM length of 20 to 22 meters.
For comparison, the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) used in Operation Midnight Hammer could reportedly penetrate at least 60 meters. That may not be enough to penetrate sites like Beijing Military City, but it is more than capable of destroying underground nuclear missile silos.
Yet advances in bunker-busting weapons are steadily narrowing the protective advantage of underground facilities.
As Ryan Snyder notes in a December 2024 article in the peer-reviewed Science and Global Security journal, modelling shows that US long-range precision conventional cruise missiles — such as the Tomahawk and Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) could potentially achieve single-shot kill probabilities exceeding 90% against missile silos, comparable to the lethality of nuclear ballistic missiles under certain conditions.
Snyder says the results suggest that highly accurate conventional weapons with earth-penetrating capabilities might substitute for nuclear counterforce missions against hardened silos.
However, this vulnerability might lead China to adopt a “use-it-or-lose-it” approach with its land-based nuclear arsenal, promoting a “launch-on-warning (LOW)” posture. Such a shift would diverge from China’s usual “No-First-Use (NFU)” policy.
Although LOW does not fully abandon NFU—since retaliation still occurs after an attack is detected, it effectively tests NFU by reducing decision time, increasing the risk of misinterpretation or false alarms, and potentially necessitating the pre-delegation of launch authority. This situation could undermine the political restraint associated with China’s NFU posture.
As precision conventional weapons begin to threaten hardened nuclear infrastructure, China’s subterranean strategy may strengthen survivability but also risks accelerating doctrinal shifts that could test the stability of its longstanding nuclear restraint.