A satellite imagery analysis by the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals suggests that China may be conducting sustained drone-attack drills at a desert bombing range near Yumen in Gansu Province, using targets modeled on hardened aircraft shelters at US bases in Japan, including Misawa Air Base in Aomori and Kadena Air Base in Okinawa.

Construction of the bunker-like targets likely began in February last year and was completed in April. The institute believes tests or drills were conducted sometime by April 21 this year, and that the structures had been removed by April 30. 

Satellite imagery acquired and analyzed by JINF.

Similar bunker-shaped targets had appeared at the same site in January before being removed in February, suggesting a pattern of repeated testing or training.

The implications are especially troubling for Aomori Prefecture, home to Misawa Air Base. Apart from US military facilities, the prefecture hosts Japanese defense force bases, nuclear power plants, and other critical infrastructure. 

Measures are also needed to ensure that facilities owned by foreign capital in the surrounding areas are not exploited for sabotage or disruption in a contingency.

The Spiderweb Warning

In June last year, Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb damaged more than 40 Russian strategic bombers and other aircraft stationed at multiple air bases inside Russia. More than 100 small drones had reportedly been smuggled into Russia and transported by large trailers to near Russian air bases.

For China, the most efficient way to neutralize America’s air power in a Taiwan contingency would be to destroy aircraft while they are still on the ground, or render runways unusable. That is likely why Beijing is believed to be repeatedly performing drone-attack training.

According to a 2024 survey by the institute, about 360 renewable-energy facilities in Aomori Prefecture had links to Chinese capital. Foreign-owned renewable-energy projects have expanded under the government’s decarbonization policy, but Chinese investment has been conspicuous.

Vast tracts of land owned by foreign entities could be used in unpredictable ways during a crisis. Drones could, for example, be operated from large solar-power sites to attack key facilities.

Limits of Land Rules

Japan’s 2021 land regulation law allows the government to investigate territorial use within one kilometer (0.6 miles) of designated sensitive facilities and to recommend or order a halt to inappropriate activity. But its reach is limited, and further tightening of the law is difficult.

Aomori has 35 “special monitored zones” and “monitored zones” designated under the law. Because plotting all 360 renewable-energy sites would make the map difficult to read, the institute displayed only the major sites in the image below.

Assuming the small attack drones used in Ukraine have a range of about 15 to 20 kilometers, most of these renewable-energy sites appear close enough to key facilities and designated monitored zones to pose a potential security risk.

“In the phase between gray-zone situations and an actual contingency, time will be of the essence,” says Kiyofumi Iwata, a former chief of staff of the Ground Self-Defense Force and a member of the JINF. “Japan, therefore, needs stronger and more effective legal restrictions and enforcement measures, including land seizures.”

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Author: Takashi Arimoto, The Sankei Shimbun

(Read related articles in Japanese here and here)

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