What New Satellite Photo Reveals About China’s Invasion Plans

New satellite imagery has surfaced showing China’s enigmatic new landing barges—vessels believed to have been designed to support large-scale amphibious assaults, such as a potential invasion of Taiwan.

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese defense ministry by email with a request for comment outside of office hours.

Why It Matters

Taiwan, a global hub for high-tech supply chains and a major U.S. trade partner, faces increasing pressure from China. Beijing’s Chinese Communist Party government claims Taiwan as its territory—despite never having ruled there—and has vowed unification is inevitable.

China has intensified pressure on Taiwan through near-daily military sorties in the Taiwan Strait, large-scale exercises and simulated blockades. Current and former U.S. officials believe Chinese President Xi Jinping has directed the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be capable of taking the island by 2027.

What To Know

First reported by Naval News in January, the vessels were constructed in Guangzhou Shipyards by the CSSC Offshore & Marine Engineering Company (COMEC), which provides the PLA with provider replenishment oilers and other support ships.

The barges, dubbed “Shuiqiao”—Mandarin for “water bridge”—barges, are notable for their jack-up legs and bridges that extend nearly 400 feet. These features allow multiple barges to be connected, forming a single long span, as seen in images and video shared by military enthusiasts on Chinese social media.

A Shuiqiao barge functions as a temporary pontoon. Tanks and other armored vehicles ferried to the coast by China’s roll-on/roll-off ships could drive over the bridge and disembark farther inland, bypassing heavily defended beaches.

A July 27 photo captured by satellite imagery provider SkyFi shows three of the barges near Nantian Island in Zhejiang province, accompanied by a PLA Fujian-class tanker.

Open-source analyst MT Anderson, who shared the photos on X, formerly Twitter, wrote that the barges appeared to be undergoing verification testing.

Analysts say the choice of location is intentional, as the terrain closely resembles coastal areas northeast of Taipei, the Taiwanese capital.

“It reflects a deliberate effort to simulate Taiwan’s northeast coastline, particularly areas like Yilan County and New Taipei City, where rugged, less-defended beaches could offer the PLA an asymmetric opening,” Bryce Barros, former China affairs analyst with the German Marshall Fund, told Newsweek.

“This suggests the PLA may be preparing to rapidly disembark vehicles, troops, and supplies near the capital if a beachhead can be secured,” he added.

The barges, however, would be highly vulnerable without established air and sea superiority and could still face threats from Taiwanese drones and portable missile launchers like the Javelin, Barros said, pointing to Ukraine’s defense against invading Russian forces as an example.

What’s Next

A more recent satellite photo, also shared by Anderson, showed the barges—which bear the hull numbers “Dongong” 401, 402 and 403—were still at Nantian Island as of Sunday.

If the ships are undergoing verification training, they could soon be incorporated into the PLA Navy.