North Korea has quietly built and operated a sprawling long-range missile base near the Chinese border that stores Kim Jong Un’s most advanced strategic weapons, demonstrating the regime’s ongoing efforts to advance its nuclear strike capabilities, a think tank said.
The base in Sinpung, North Pyongan Province, located 17 miles from the border with China, likely houses a brigade-sized unit equipped with six to nine nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles and their mobile launchers, a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies showed Wednesday. “These missiles pose a potential nuclear threat to East Asia and the continental United States,” the report said.
“Current assessments are that during times of crisis or war, these launchers and missiles will exit the base, meet special warhead storage, transportation units, and conduct launch operations from dispersed pre-surveyed sites,” the report said, citing satellite imagery.
Construction of the base began around 2004 and facilities were mostly built and operational by 2014, the report said, adding that the complex appears to have been continuously developed since.
South Korea’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a Bloomberg News request seeking comment on the reported base.
The newly revealed missile base highlights the regime’s escalating nuclear threat and strategic intent. It also underscores a stark reality that North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is larger, more dispersed, and more survivable than many outside assessments assume. It signals Pyongyang’s shift toward rapid-launch capabilities that complicate U.S. preemptive strike options.
Its location near China’s border further shields it from attack, raising geopolitical stakes for Washington and Beijing alike. With construction continuing and North Korea emboldened by real-world weapons experience in Ukraine, this discovery signals that Kim Jong Un’s nuclear ambitions are both growing and increasingly difficult to deter.
The revelation comes just days after Kim called for the “rapid expansion” of his country’s nuclear weapons program, ramping up tensions just as the U.S. and South Korea began joint military drills that Pyongyang views as a prelude to war.
President Donald Trump and Kim met in person three times during the U.S. president’s first term, but those interactions failed to convince Kim to curb the development of his nuclear weapons program. North Korea has since rebuffed the idea of sitting down with the U.S. again and has emerged as a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, supporting his war on Ukraine.
Kim said earlier this week the only way to defend the country’s security is to “make enemies afraid” of North Korea and that its capabilities will be “expressed through practical actions.”
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