What is going on at GPS coordinates 39.29525, 105.49995, in Inner Mongolia? A satellite image, posted Tuesday March 26 on Twitter by a Taiwanese who specializes in the analysis of free data, shows constructions which look very similar to the government district of Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, but located in the north of China, more than 1,200 kilometers from Beijing.

朱日和的是總統府，準確來說是博愛特區，不過同，阿拉善的比較像炸射靶場。 https://t.co/ESWXMwthKg pic. twitter.com/kymsQJgaRH

— Joseph.W 約瑟 (@JosephWen___) March 26, 2024

“China is creating a replica of Taipei to train for invasion,” the Taiwan News news site raged on Thursday March 28. In reality, not the entire city has just been reproduced in southwest Inner Mongolia.

Replica of a key district of Taipei

The satellite photo shows a succession of streets arranged in such a way that the whole strongly evokes part of the Bo'ai special zone, a very special neighborhood in the Zhongzheng district of Taipei. It is in fact in this part of the capital that most of the administrative buildings are located, such as the presidential palace, the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Justice and the Central Bank of Taiwan. The Bo'ai special zone is subject to specific regulations which include, among other things, a ban on aerial overflight.

The reality of this construction was confirmed to France 24 by Sim Tack, an analyst from Force Analysis, a conflict zone monitoring company which has access to satellite imagery. China began building this reproduction of the presidential district of Taipei "from March 2021 and until at least February 2022", specifies this expert.

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It is also more than just a network of roads. The Chinese added buildings or at least facades "which are inspired by what we can see in Taipei without having exactly the same shape and size", explains Sim Tack.

“It is inevitable that the Chinese army will produce this kind of imitation. When a country can do it, it does it,” said Chiu Kuo-cheng, Taiwanese Defense Minister, Wednesday March 27. He added that Taiwan could also replicate infrastructure from any country for military training purposes.

It may seem surprising to thus minimize the scope of these revelations on new constructions in Inner Mongolia when "we have realized in recent months that China is increasing its hostile acts against Taiwan", notes Marc Lanteigne, sinologist at the Arctic University of Norway. Beijing has thus increased pressure on the island with incursions of fighter planes into Taiwan's air defense zone in the fall of 2023. And now, the army has enough to train to bomb the presidential district or to launch a ground invasion there?

Like in 2015

In fact, Taiwan has already had to deal with this type of provocation... which was not followed up. The Chinese army is not at its first attempt: “To understand what is currently happening, we must compare it with the precedent of 2015,” assures Lewis Eves, specialist in security issues in China at University of Sheffield.

At the time, China had reproduced the Taiwanese presidential palace almost identically in Inner Mongolia. "We realized this because the video of a simulated assault on the building had been broadcast by Chinese television and the army website had published training images in a reproduction of the surroundings of the building. palace,” notes Lewis Eves.

This expert is not surprised that the Chinese army is bringing out the idea of ​​reconstituting part of Taipei while “the geopolitical context in the region has great similarities with that of 2015”. Taiwan was then experiencing the 2016 presidential election, just like this year – the vote was held in January. Tensions between China and Japan over the status of islands in the South China Sea were very high in 2015, and are also the case now. 

In both cases, "Beijing considered it necessary to make a show of force both towards Taiwan but also for internal propaganda purposes to stimulate and nourish nationalist sentiment", believes Lewis Eves. Indeed, in times of high international tensions, China "seeks to rally opinion behind the CCP [Chinese Communist Party, Editor's note] by playing the nationalist card", specifies this specialist. And the reaffirmation of claims against Taiwan for the purposes of Chinese “national unity” contributes to this effort.

"Psychological warfare"

This penchant for Taipei's replicas therefore has a strong propaganda component. Or rather "psychological warfare", estimates Ho Ting (Bosco) Hung, China specialist at the International Team for the Study of Security in Verona (ITSS Verona). “It is clearly a way of telling Taiwan that if the island’s authorities refuse Beijing’s demands, China is preparing for military scenarios,” he explains.

But Beijing isn't going to such lengths just to send a signal to Taiwan and its people. There would be cheaper ways to do this. Especially since in the case of the reconstruction of the Bo'ai special zone, it is not Beijing which is at the origin of the revelation.

Read alsoChina-Taiwan: how Beijing advances its pawns with military “incursions”

China had even made efforts to be more discreet than in 2015. At the time, the replica of the Taiwanese presidential palace had been built in the heart of the Zhurihe training base, presented by Beijing as "the largest of Asia.” Satellite photos of this complex even show that China has built a building there that looks exactly like the Eiffel Tower.

The new constructions are located hundreds of kilometers away, in a region "probably less observed by Western satellites than the Zhurihe base", notes Marc Lanteigne.

It remains possible that "the Chinese authorities were waiting for the right moment to disclose their new constructions and were taken by surprise", recognizes this specialist. But the most probable is that "if these buildings can be used for propaganda purposes, their primary utility remains military", affirms Ho Ting (Bosco) Hung.

Aerial bombardment?

“This shows that the Chinese army is starting to take a concrete interest in simulated attacks against specific and strategic targets,” said Marc Lanteigne. The new Taipei replica is in fact much more detailed than the one produced in 2015.

In the case of the Bo'ai Special Zone, there are two scenarios. The first concerns simulations of aerial bombings in order to “decapitate Taiwanese institutions”, mentions the Taiwan News site. It is a complex operation because “we know that Taiwanese anti-aircraft defenses are excellent,” notes Ho Ting (Bosco) Hung. But, for this specialist, this remains an operation to be prepared because "an air attack remains the quickest option to try to invade the island", he believes.

The other scenario concerns preparation for a land operation. “For simple bombings, China would probably not have gone to such lengths to recreate this district of Taipei,” supposes Marc Lanteigne. He adds that "urban warfare represents the most difficult thing, so it is natural that Beijing seeks to prepare for it." And not necessarily only for a possible attack on Taiwan. "Xi Jinping is pushing to reform and modernize his army, and knowing how to fight in an urban environment is a crucial aspect that requires training. The fact that the army has chosen to recreate the presidential district of Taipei, it may be because it is a probable setting where the Chinese army may be called upon to intervene,” he concludes. Not sure that this will reassure Taiwan.

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