BANGKOK — China has built a prototype ground-based nuclear reactor for a large surface warship, in the clearest sign yet that Beijing is moving toward production of its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, according to a new analysis of satellite images and documents Chinese government provided to The Associated. Presser.

China’s navy is already the largest in the world in terms of numbers and has been modernizing rapidly. Adding nuclear-powered carriers to its fleet would be a major step in realizing its ambitions for a true “blue water” force capable of operating in seas far from China in a growing global challenge to the United States.

“Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers would place China in the exclusive ranks of first-class naval powers, a group currently limited to the United States and France,” said Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. For China’s leadership, such a development would symbolize national prestige, fueling domestic nationalism and raising the country’s global image as a leading power.”

Researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California said they made the discovery while investigating a mountain site outside the city of Leshan in southwest China’s Sichuan province, where they suspected China was building a reactor to produce plutonium or tritium for weapons.

Instead, they concluded that China was building a prototype reactor for a large warship. The Leshan project is called the Longwei Project, or Dragon Might, and is also referred to as the Nuclear Power Development Project in the documents.

Neither China’s Ministry of Defense nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to requests for comment.

There have long been rumors that China plans to build a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but the Middlebury team’s research is the first to confirm that China is working on a nuclear-powered propulsion system for a carrier-sized surface warship.

“The Leshan reactor prototype is the first solid evidence that China is, in fact, developing a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a Middlebury professor and one of the project’s researchers. the aircraft carrier is an exclusive club, one that China appears to be joining.”

Drawing on satellite imagery and public documents, including project bids, personnel files, environmental impact studies — and even a citizen’s complaint about noisy construction and excessive dust — they concluded that a prototype naval propulsion reactor it was built in the mountains of Mucheng City, about 70 years. miles (112 kilometers) southwest of Sichuan Province’s capital, Chengdu.

The reactor, which procurement documents indicate will soon be operational, is housed in a new facility built at the site known as Base 909, which houses six other reactors that are operational, decommissioned or under construction, according to the review. The site is under the control of the China Nuclear Energy Institute, a subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation, which is tasked with reactor engineering research and testing.

Documents indicating that China’s 701 Institute, officially known as the China Ship Research and Design Center, which is responsible for the development of the aircraft carrier, has acquired reactor equipment “intended for installation on a large surface warship” in the Nuclear Power Development Project as well as the “national defense designation” project helped to conclude that the sizeable reactor is a prototype for a state-of-the-art aircraft carrier.

Satellite mags from 2020 to 2023 showed the demolition of homes and the construction of water catchment infrastructure connected to the reactor site. Contracts for steam generators and turbine pumps indicate that the project involves a pressurized water reactor with a secondary circuit – a profile that is consistent with naval propulsion reactors, the researchers say.

An environmental impact report calls the Longwei Project a “national defense-related construction project” that is classified “secret.”

“Unless China is developing nuclear-powered cruisers, which were only pursued by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, then the Nuclear Power Development Project certainly refers to an effort to develop a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier ,” the researchers wrote in a detailed 19-page report on their findings, distributed exclusively to the AP.

Jamie Withorne, an analyst at the Oslo Nuclear Project who was not involved in the research and reviewed the results, said Middlebury’s team made a “compelling argument.”

“From the identification reports, the co-location with other naval reactor facilities and the related construction activity, I think it is safe to say that the Longwei project is probably housed at Base 909 and could be located at the identified building,” she said.

However, the research gives no indication of when a Chinese nuclear-powered carrier might be built and become operational, she said.

Sarah Laderman, senior analyst at the Open Nuclear Network, a program of the US-based NGO PAX sapiens foundation, said the findings were “carefully conducted and thoroughly researched”.

“Given the evidence presented here, I see a compelling case that China appears to be working on building a nuclear propulsion system for its naval surface ships (probably aircraft carriers) at this location,” said Laderman, who is based in Vienna and has was uninvolved in Middlebury’s research.

China’s first carrier, commissioned in 2012, was a repurposed Soviet ship, and the second was built in China but based on Soviet design. Both ships – called Liaoning and Shandong – use a so-called “ski-jump” launch method, with a ramp at the end of a short runway to help the planes take off.

Type 003 Fujian, launched in 2022, was the country’s third carrier and the first to be designed and built locally. It uses an electromagnetic type launch system like those developed and used by the US Navy. All three conveyors are conventionally powered.

Sea trials had not even begun for Fujian in March when Yuan Huazhi, political commissar of the People’s Liberation Army of China, confirmed the construction of a fourth carrier. Asked if it would be nuclear-powered, he said at the time that “it will be announced soon,” but so far it hasn’t been.

There has been speculation that China may begin production of two new carriers at the same time – one Type 003 like the Fujian and one nuclear-powered Type 004 – something it has not tried before, but its shipyards have the capacity to do.

Matthew Funaiole, a senior researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project, said he doubts China’s next carrier will be nuclear-powered. Instead, he said, he would expect the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s fourth carrier to focus on optimizing the existing design of the Fujian aircraft carrier with “incremental improvements.”

Nick Childs, senior research fellow for naval forces and maritime security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the Chinese “have taken a progressive approach to the development of their carriers with a range of ambitions that will evolve over time”.

“For the time being, their deployment has been relatively cautious, remaining mostly within shore support range, but projecting influence and some degree of coercion into their close waters.”

Ultimately, though, “larger carriers, more similar to their U.S. counterparts, will give them more options to project power,” Childs said.

It takes several years to build a carrier and put it into service, but developing nuclear propulsion for the next generation of warships would eventually give China more power to run advanced systems such as electromagnetic launchers, radars and new weapons, Childs said.

“As well as avoiding the need for the ship to refuel regularly and therefore giving it a much longer range, nuclear power means that without having to carry fuel for the ship, there will be room on board for fuel and weapons for its aircraft, expanding them. capabilities,” Childs said.

“Much will depend on the overall size of the next carrier, but the addition of nuclear power will represent a significant step in China’s carrier development, with a ship more comparable to US Navy aircraft carriers.”

Zhao, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the nuclear-powered carriers would give the Chinese military “greater flexibility and resilience to operate around strategic hot spots, particularly along the First Island Chain, where find out most of the territories disputed by China”, he said. Zhao.

The first island chain includes the autonomous island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own and promises to annex by force if necessary.

The United States is required by domestic law to provide Taiwan with enough weapons to deter invasion and could provide assistance to the island from its Pacific bases in the event of an invasion or blockade. Tensions have also risen in the South China Sea between China and neighboring nations over territorial disputes and maritime claims.

“These carriers could also extend Chinese operations deeper into the Western Pacific, further challenging the US military’s ability to ‘intervene’ in regional issues that China sees as best resolved by countries in the region alone,” Zhao said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has tasked defense officials with building a “first-class” navy and becoming a maritime power as part of his plan to rejuvenate the country.

The country’s most recent white paper on national defense, in 2019, said the Chinese navy is adapting to strategic requirements by “accelerating the transition of its tasks from near sea defense to far sea protection missions”.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy is already the largest navy in the world, with over 370 ships and submarines. The country also boasts strong shipbuilding capabilities: China’s shipyards build many hundreds of ships each year, while the US builds five or fewer, according to a US congressional report late last year.

However, the Chinese Navy lags behind the US Navy in many respects. Among other advantages, the US currently has 11 carriers, all nuclear-powered, allowing it to maintain multiple strike groups deployed around the world at any given time, including in the Indo-Pacific.

But the Pentagon is increasingly concerned about China’s rapid modernization of its fleet, including the design and construction of new carriers.

This aligns with China’s “increasing emphasis on the maritime domain and increasing requirements” for its navy to “operate at greater distances from mainland China,” the Defense Department said in its latest report to Congress. regarding China’s military.

And China’s “growing aircraft carrier force extends the air defense coverage of deployed task groups beyond the range of land defenses, enabling operations further from China’s shores,” the report said.

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Tang reported from Washington DC