ISTANBUL

China is constructing a vast military complex in the western part of Beijing that US officials say will serve as a wartime command center and could be larger than the Pentagon, the Financial Times reported.

Satellite images reviewed by US intelligence show a 1,500-acre (607-hectare) site near the capital, likely designed with reinforced bunkers to shelter Chinese military leaders during a conflict, including nuclear war.

Once operational, the site could become the world’s largest military command center—more than 10 times the size of the Pentagon, according to US intelligence officials.

Construction, which began in mid-2024, is part of the People’s Liberation Army’s broader modernization plan aimed at expanding its nuclear arsenal, developing new weapons, and improving coordination across all military domains, including land, air, sea, space, cyber, and electronic warfare.

"China's main secure command center is in the Western Hills, northeast of the new facility, and was built decades ago at the height of the Cold War," a former US official told the Financial Times.

"The size, scale, and partially buried characteristics of the new facility suggest it will replace the Western Hills complex as the primary wartime command facility."