Satellite images show China working on nuclear reactor for warship

China has built a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large warship, according to analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents.

The images are the clearest sign yet that Beijing is advancing towards producing its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

Beijing already has the world’s largest navy in terms of numbers, and has been rapidly modernising its fleet. Adding nuclear-powered carriers would be a major first step in realising China’s ambitions for a global naval that could challenge the US.

“Nuclear-powered carriers would place China in the exclusive ranks of first-class naval powers, a group currently limited to the United States and France,” Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said.

Domestically, such a development would symbolise national prestige and fuel “domestic nationalism.”

The discovery was unearthed by researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California as they investigated a mountain site outside the city of Leshan in southwest China.

Initially suspecting China was building a reactor to produce plutonium or tritium for weapons, they concluded Beijing was focusing its efforts on a prototype reactor for a large warship.

The reactor, which documents indicate will soon be fully operational, is housed in a new facility known as Base 909 which houses six other reactors that are either operational, decommissioned or under construction.

The site is under the control of the Nuclear Power Institute of China, a subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation, which is tasked with reactor engineering research and testing.

Contracts for steam generators and turbine pumps indicate the project involves a pressurised water reactor with a secondary circuit — a profile that is consistent with naval propulsion reactors, the researchers say.

“Nuclear Power Development Project most certainly refers to a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier development effort,” researchers wrote in a detailed 19-page report.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy is already the world’s largest with over 370 ships and submarines.

However, it still lags behind the US Navy in some respects — with the Washington’s navy having eleven nuclear powered carriers allowing it to keep strike groups deployed around the world at all times.

The Pentagon has become increasingly concerned about China’s rapid modernisation of its fleet, saying that its efforts align with China’s “growing emphasis on the maritime domain and increasing demands.”

Neither China’s Defence Ministry nor Foreign Affairs Ministry responded to requests for comment.