Satellite imagery shows unusual activity last month, including the sudden appearance of four crane barges, at a shipyard in China that builds submarines and other naval vessels, which might potentially be a sign of an accident of some kind.
Tom Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) think tank and a retired U.S. Navy submarine warfare officer, was first to notice the goings-on at the Wuchang Shipyard. This yard, which is part of the state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), is situated along a stretch of the Yangtze River just outside the city of Wuhan. It was fully relocated from a site within Wuhan proper to its current location sometime between 2021 and 2022.
“An older image from 29 May shows nothing unusual – a presumably new-construction Yuan-class submarine (Type 039 variant) in the usual spot where newly-launched boats are fitted out,” Shugart wrote in a series of posts on X.
The Type 039A series boats, also known in the West as the Yuan class, are some of the most modern diesel-electric types in service today with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and versions are also offered for export. Wuchang is predominantly associated with the construction of variants of the Type 039A. The shipyard also builds various kinds of surface warships and supports other naval developmental work, including past testing of an electromagnetic railgun. It produces commercial vessels, as well.
“I acquired an [satellite] image [from Planet Labs] from June 13th. In the image, there appears to be what look like crane barges clustered around…something…near where the submarine was earlier,” Shugart continued. “Also, the floating pier where the submarine was moored appears to have been offset a bit.”
A further review of imagery available from Planet Labs shows the cluster of four crane barges in place at least from June 12 through June 17. The submarine that had been in the berth in May is absent during those dates, but it is not clear when exactly it was last seen. By the first week of July, the barges are gone and activity at Wuchang appears to have returned to normal.
What the cranes might be working on is not readily discernable. Shugart himself has noted that what initially drew his attention was a shadow cast by one of the cranes. Whether there is anything else below that shadow is not clear. What may be additional smaller boats or barges, or something else in the water, which might also be what the cranes are working on, are visible directly above.
Regardless, the sudden appearance of a quartet of crane barges arrayed around the same general area where a submarine had been previously, with the space in between them roughly the length of a Type 039A, plus the presence of a floating boom, is unusual and raises questions about the possibility of some kind of incident. Floating cranes can be used to help right or otherwise stabilize vessels that have capsized or might be at risk of doing so, as well as to move debris. Booms are often used to help contain oil and other hazardous fluid leaks.
A potential accident at one of China’s more prominent shipyards, especially one involved in the production of new submarines, could be significant. Questions have been raised in the past about safety and quality control practices in Chinese naval shipbuilding, which is often observed progressing very rapidly, even when it comes to large and/or complex vessels.
“They’re [China] a communist country, they don’t have rules by which they abide by,” Secretary of the U.S. Navy Carlos Del Toro told members of Congress at a hearing last year. “They use slave labor in building their ships.”
Del Toro at that time was responding to concerned questions about U.S. shipbuilding capacity, or lack thereof. In recent years, the Navy itself has sounded the alarm about the Chinese government being exponentially more capable of building submarines and other warships than the United States, as you can read more about here.
The possibility of a more mundane explanation for the presence of the crane barges cannot be ruled out at this time, as well.
