May 2, 2025: China is up to something big some have called the Beijing Bunker. Satellite photos show a large 600 hectare underground bunker complex being built 30 kilometers outside the Chinese capital Beijing. Satellite images indicate that the military is supervising construction. It is believed this underground facility will be a refuge for leader Xi Jinping and his political, economic and military advisors and their staffs. The idea that the United States or any other nuclear nation, like Russia, Britain, France, Israel, Pakistan or North Korea would attack China is unrealistic, though the corruption opportunities are vast.

In the event of war, especially a nuclear conflict, the bunker complex would be a refuge for the political and military leadership. This would be a place where Chinese leaders could develop reprisal plans and issue them to surviving Chinese units to carry out.

China believes that they would be attacked if they finally did attack the island nation of Taiwan. This would be an expensive effort to reunite Taiwan with China. For nearly thirty years China has been making serious preparations to launch an amphibious operation to conquer Taiwan. Last year Xi Jinping announced that China would seize or try to seize Taiwan before the end of the decade.

In China laws have been passed allowing China to quickly nationalize foreign assets as part of a program to keep the Chinese people supplied if there is an international embargo and economic sanctions. China also plans to increase its emergency petroleum stockpile so there will be supplies for years of isolation. China is building a pipeline to get petroleum to areas that normally receive it from the nearest coastal city and port. China is purchasing oil from as many suppliers as possible as these nations will feel the economic pain if China is embargoed because it seized Taiwan. China is also buying immense quantities of corn and wheat to feed the population in the event of embargo or American blockade. There are reports that this grain is not being properly stored and is instead simply dumped in the open to the delight of huge flocks of birds.

Xi Jinping would supervise all this from his Beijing Bunker. Xi has been reducing Chinese holdings of American government bonds. This reduces the economic damage to China if the United States declares war and seizes whatever Chinese assets it can. China hopes such a war will not involve much military action beyond that needed to blockade China. According to Chinese plans, that blockade would last a few years and would then be lifted because so many nations want to end their economic suffering because trade with China was blocked. China is the second largest, after the United States, trading nation in the world and taking Chinese trade out of circulation would cause worldwide suffering. In theory, it would be worse for China but not if China can build up large enough reserves of essential food and industrial supplies to survive the economic catastrophe China created. These Chinese moves would lead to economic disruption outside China for years and have a lasting impact that could take a decade or more to recover from.

The Chinese plans are theoretical at the moment even though China is quietly implementing some aspects of their surviving the expected worldwide economic disruption a seizure of Taiwan would lead to. Another problem is that enough details of the Chinese plan have become known to trading partners and nations willing to use military and economic force to block a Chinese attack on Taiwan. China wants to avoid a war but Taiwan and its military allies, especially the United States, are willing to meet force with force. China doesn’t want to get into a war because its forces are untested and, as recent corruption scandals have demonstrated, led by generals who are more concerned with getting rich than getting ready for war.

The Beijing Bunker is seen as another military boondoggle. Corruption in the Chinese military has been rampant for thousands of years. While the military leaders and their subordinates swear allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party/CCP and Xi, this is a mixed blessing. The Chinese military is regularly disrupted when senior leaders are arrested for corruption. Officers are selected more for their loyalty to Xi and the CCP than for competence. Chinese troops have not fought since 1979, when Chinese infantry were defeated by Vietnamese troops in a brief border war.

In the end, the Beijing Bunker may be a place where Xi can hide while coming up with a plan to get himself, the CCP and China out of some military misadventure that seemed like a good idea at the time. Before that there were some border skirmishes and naval conflicts with neighboring India and Vietnam. In the 1960s Chinese forces fought with India over disputed borders. That conflict continues to the present. There was some fighting with Russian troops in 1969. Until 1975 there had been three decades of naval skirmishes with Vietnam over disputed islands in the South China Sea. These battles continued on land and sea until 1991.