China Builds Replica U.S. Destroyer To Test Missiles On

Satellite images revealed Wednesday morning that China has built a replica of a U.S. destroyer at a remote missile-testing location in one of its deserts.

The image captured in May 2026 that was just released depicts the structure of a U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in Xinjiang in the Taklamakan Desert that will be used to test missiles. The subject looks to be an exact copy of a ship currently used in the U.S. Seventh Fleet that covers the Western Pacific and the waters surrounding Taiwan.

Co-founder of the Taiwan Defense Studies Initiative Joseph Wu first identified the structure.

Debris that appeared to be left from previous missile tests surrounded the mock ship in the desert. Given the available information, the assessment is that those replicas are being used as target practice for China’s military to test out new anti-ship weaponry.

Earlier in the month, Taiwan test-fired dozens of practice rockets from U.S.-supplied HIMARS launchers into the Taiwan Strait in a drill simulating a Chinese invasion, its first such live-fire exercise on the coast facing China.

On Wednesday, the de facto British, French, and German embassies in Taipei issued a rare joint statement voicing concern over recent Chinese coast guard patrols in the waters east of Taiwan, saying the activity threatened regional stability and freedom of navigation.

This is not the first time satellite images have surfaced showing China building replicas of U.S. ships on which to test their firepower. In 2021, the U.S. Naval Institute reported that two of the same destroyer models and an aircraft carrier were seen at a testing range in the southeastern region of the desert in Ruoqiang.

Recreations of U.S. airfields and Taiwanese roads have also appeared in the same deserts over the years.

While building mock-ups is a common use around the world for a country’s military, the complex relationship between the United States and China raises concerns for what the communist country may have planned. 

Neither China’s Defense Ministry nor the U.S. Department of Defense responded to Bloomberg’s request for comment.