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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

Why China built a full-scale replica of a US Navy destroyer in Xinjiang province

For China, a replica Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is turning into a laboratory where PLA studies an adversary’s systems and rehearses actions required before a conflict begins.

Deep in Xinjiang’s Taklamakan Desert, a full-scale replica of a US Navy destroyer sits where no warship has ever sailed. It is surrounded by sand rather than the Pacific Ocean. Satellite imagery has revealed what appears to be a full-scale model of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, one of the US Navy’s most important surface combatants. 

Thousands of kilometres from the sea, the replica, built with exact dimensions, forms part of a broader effort to study one of the hardest problems in modern warfare—finding, tracking, and engaging a heavily defended naval target. 

Chinese military commentary presents the replica as a way of testing the broader kill chain: whether China’s surveillance, tracking, and strike systems can operate together against a US naval platform protected by advanced sensors and defensive capabilities. 

As one Chinese commentary put it, “This is not a target; it is a replica of the enemy’s main fleet in the desert.”

Built to test a harder problem

Chinese military discussions surrounding the desert replica focus on a challenge that goes beyond simply building a target. Earlier mock-ups could reproduce the outline of a warship, but Chinese analysts argue that modern naval platforms are far more difficult to replicate. They are moving........

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