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People's Liberation Army
Air Force

Shantou Northeast Airfield
23°25'N 116°45'E

This airfield, which is located to the northeast of the city of Shantou, is the headquarters of an Air Division subordinated to the Guanagzhou Military Region's 7th Air Army.

Based on 1966 CORONA imagery, this facility consists of a hard-surface runway that is less than 8,000 feet in length. It has at least 25 revetted hardstands, which are connected to the runway via three taxiways. Each revetment may hold up to three combat aircraft. Therefore, this airfield may support up to 75 combat aircraft. Along the western end of the runway, there are almost 20 alert hardstands. There are no obvious weapons storage areas.

In March 2000 it was reported that the PLA Air Force was deploying new air-defense missiles [possibly batteries of Russian-made S-300 missiles] opposite Taiwan at the coastal cities of Xiamen and Shantou, and at Longtian, near Fuzhou. The S-300 missiles have twice the range of the HQ-2 [China's version of the Russian-designed SA-2 SAM] deployed at these locations. China has a total of six HQ-2 facilities near Taiwan, also including airfields at Fuzhou, Zhangzhou near Xiamen, and the military airfield at Liancheng.

Photographic Evaluation Report

High resolution imagery is available from two sources, including declassified CORONA imagery. As of 01 May 2000 Russian 2-meter resolution KVR-1000 imagery coverage was not available via the SPIN-2 service on TerraServer. As of 08 April 2000 archival Space Imaging IKONOS 1-meter imagery available on the CARTERRA™ Archive included a pair of scenes of this area, acquired on 29 March 2000. However both scenes have cloud cover in excess of the standard 20% threshold. These adjoining scenes are approximately centered on Shantou Northeast Airfield, which is only dimly visible through the overcast.

28 September 1966 - CORONA 2000 - IKONOS

Sources and Resources



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http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/china/facility/shantou.htm
Maintained by Robert Sherman
Originally created by John Pike
Updated Friday, May 12, 2000 12:00:01 AM