China fears U.S. bomber strikes on nuclear sites

China reacted with unease to the daring U.S. military raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities with official state media voicing fears that underground Chinese nuclear sites are vulnerable to similar strikes, according to a U.S. Air Force think tank report.

The June 22 operation known as Midnight Hammer involved B-2 bombers and Tomahawk cruise missiles that blasted three main Iranian nuclear facilities.

The bombers flew undetected from the U.S. and dropped GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs, inflicting significant damage to the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites.

Despite China’s significant economic ties to Iran and the two countries’ strategic partnership, Beijing’s response to the attack was relatively muted, the report said.

The U.S. long-range precision attack against hardened military targets in the heart of an adversary state raises concerns that China needs to upgrade both its long-range strike capabilities and its defenses.

This underscores that the operational success of the Midnight Hammer strikes may have stirred up broader concerns in PRC defense circles over the security of China’s own nuclear deterrent capabilities,” the report said.

Chinese strategists have expressed long-held views about advanced American conventional precision-strike capabilities, “particularly the threat they could pose to China’s nuclear deterrent,” the report said.

China’s nuclear build-up has been described by U.S. officials as a massive expansion of warheads, missiles, bombers and submarines.

Shortly after the June bombing raid, state broadcaster China Central Television interviewed a PLA engineering professor who said China needed to develop advanced defenses to protect its underground nuclear infrastructure from attack.

China also lacks the offensive firepower of the precision-guided bunker buster bombs.

“PRC concerns over its deterrence capabilities could also intensify as a result of the U.S. decision to pursue advanced strategic missile defense through the ’Golden Dome’ system and nuclear modernization,” the report said.

Much of China’s nuclear facilities are hidden in large, underground tunnels and factories that has been called the Great Underground Wall. The complex was largely secret until disclosed publicly in 2015 as including some 3,000 miles of tunnels.

In 2023, the Pentagon for the first time disclosed new details of China’s underground nuclear and weapons facilities that an annual report on the Chinese military said were expanding.

Bunkers and tunnels used for PLA nuclear warhead and missile storage, and command and control facilities are being modernized, the report said.

China “has thousands of [underground facilities] and constructs more each year. These UGFs are central to the PRC’s counter-intervention and power projection efforts, enabling the PLA to protect valuable assets from the effects of missile strikes and to conceal military operations from adversaries,” the report said.

Officially, China’s government denounced the strikes on Iran as a “dangerous display of hegemony” and reckless misuse of military power.