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China is building a new class of mobile piers, satellite images reveal, which could bolster its ability to land an invading force in Taiwan, a major step in its preparations for a potential future attack.
Satellite images captured on Friday and reviewed by the Financial Times show six barge-like vessels equipped with extendable ramps under construction at China’s state-owned Guangzhou Shipyard. The vessels could help the People’s Liberation Army transport heavy military equipment such as tanks and artillery across mudflats or seawalls on to firm ground.
The construction of the vessels, first reported by defence website Naval News, comes as the PLA is trying to close large gaps in the capabilities needed to launch an attack on Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory and has threatened to annex by force if Taipei resists unification indefinitely.
Last month, China unveiled a new hybrid amphibious assault vessel, the largest of its kind in the world, which military commentators likened to a “light aircraft carrier”.
Calls seeking comment from China’s defence ministry went unanswered on Monday.
According to Chinese military academic papers, the PLA would target ports and airports in the event of an invasion of Taiwan to allow it to bring in troops and materiel. Amphibious beach landings would be necessary if that approach failed or fell short, as hundreds of thousands of soldiers would be needed to conquer and control the island.
In amphibious landing exercises since at least 2020, China’s military has experimented with floating docks and causeways for unloading armoured vehicles and other gear from ferries and other ships.
But the barges under construction in Guangzhou have several pairs of pylons resembling the legs of offshore oil rigs, suggesting they can be anchored in the coastal silt.
“The PLA has probably come to the realisation that those floating systems are too vulnerable to attack because they take too long to assemble, and also just can’t handle heavy wind and waves as they have no stabilisation,” said Michael Dahm, senior resident fellow for aerospace and China studies at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Washington and a former naval intelligence officer.
Chinese military researchers have repeatedly highlighted the importance of stabilised landing gear and the weaknesses of floating systems in papers published in military logistics journals in recent years.
“Such concerns were reinforced by the challenges the US had with its floating pier in Gaza,” Dahm said. The US plan to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory via a floating pier last summer collapsed after just 20 days, after waves damaged and then broke the specially built, $230mn structure.
Analysts believe that an amphibious invasion of Taiwan would be one of the most difficult operations in military history. Long stretches of the country’s coast are cliffs, reefs and rocks, while its flat western seaboard is lined with mudflats in which heavy equipment could be easily get stuck.
Most of the coastline is also separated from inland areas by concrete seawalls or wave-breaking concrete blocks.
Shore-based lifting equipment such as the new barges could help an invasion force overcome such obstacles, analysts said. The satellite images showed mobile piers of three different sizes. The largest, with eight pylons, was 183 metres long and had a ramp extending another 128 metres.
But military experts said a Chinese invasion force would still struggle to advance through Taiwan’s western plains, which are densely packed with paddy fields, fish ponds and urban sprawl, with wide roads often hard to reach from shore.
Taiwanese observers said the PLA’s new capability reinforced the need for Taipei to target Chinese forces before they reached shore.
“It is their large amphibious assault ships, their helicopters and airborne forces that we must be able to target,” said Lin Ying-yu, an assistant professor at the Graduate Institute for International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Taiwan’s Tamkang University.
“It is like in baseball,” Lin added. “They may have chosen a very good closer, but if we fight well in the first wave, that skill will not come to bear.”
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