China should build an underground network across its western region to protect key energy and defence facilities, securing long-term reserves while boosting national security and crisis resilience, energy experts have said.
Zhang Shishu, chief technical expert at Power Construction Corporation of China (PowerChina), a state-owned energy and infrastructure giant, called for critical facilities to be embedded deep beneath the Earth’s surface at a safer, less detectable level.
In an article for the Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhang said that strategic sites – such as the southwestern hydropower hubs and the northwestern oil and gas fields – were ideal for subterranean facilities to store oil, natural gas and rare metals.
“Major national projects should prioritise relocating essential facilities below ground to shield them from potential attacks and make them less visible,” the article said.
“Moving critical infrastructure underground and building concealed strategic tunnels with backup systems would significantly reinforce national defence and border security.”
The article, published in February, was written by a team of PowerChina engineers led by Zhang.
Their suggestions come amid China’s push to establish strategic hinterlands and backups for key industries in interior regions, a move seen as crucial for Beijing to counter external complications amid heightened rivalry with the United States.
