The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has constructed a new, underground facility (UGF) about 31 miles from the India-China border, and 37 miles from the Indian Army’s forward posts at Demchok in Ladakh.

According to The Print, satellite imagery identified a deeply buried hardened target (DBHT) under construction outside the town of Ngari, also known as Shiquanhe in Mandarin.

Construction started in December 2016, about six months before the 2017 China–India border standoff near the India-China-Bhutan tri-junction in the east.

The Print, specified that special personnel are being used instead of locals, to maintain secrecy and security of the project.

The UGF appears to have four large tunnel entrances and three small ones; all have hardened entrances with reinforced concrete. Judging by the images, the openings would soon be covered with other material to withstand a direct military strike.

Some of the construction material can be seen outside the entrances, including cement and metals plants sufficient for construction activity inside the tunnels.

The tunneled facility had a support garrison constructed in 2016 and 2017. Another support garrison has just been started, said The Print.

Both the garrisons are close to the main road. Surrounding roads have been widened to allow large transport vehicles to operate safely and smoothly.

Although it is hard to indicate the exact purpose of this facility, these underground bases generally perform numerous strategic functions, such as command and control of military forces, protection of national leadership, WMD production or storage, and ballistic missile production, storage, or launch.

Both countries border one another in two locations, northern India/western China and eastern India/southern China, with constant territorial disputes in both areas.

A hypothetical war between India and China would be catastrophic for the Indo-Pacific region, cause thousands of casualties on both sides and crash the global economy.

With that in mind, the underground military bases near the Indian border shows us that China is preparing for a fight.