Hans Kristensen is getting a solid, well-deserved round of credit for spotting China’s new ballistic missile subarmine—the Jin class or Type 094 SSBN—sitting along side a dock in Google Earth.
(Here is a .kmz file)
It looks like a positive id, based not just on the size (130 m in length), but also this picture (right).
If you look carefully, photograph and satellite image have a similar looking building with a red roof against a hillside.
Same sub, same place.
Although the arrival of the Jin submarine is no surprise—the image is from 2006 and the intelligence community has been providing regular updates of a fashion—Hans’ eagle eye provides an excellent opportunity for a series of posts that I’ve been considering for a while: whether China will put its deterrent to sea, how capable the 094 will be, and what that means for US strategic policy.