Secret Chinese Sub Spotted on Google

July 6, 2007 -- The U.S., constantly wary of Chinese military might, knew China was developing a new submarine that could carry nuclear missiles. It was called JIN-class, or Type 094.

Now an image of it, according to Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, has turned up on Google Earth.

I called Kristensen, and he gave me the coordinates: 38 degrees, 49 minutes, 4 seconds North, 121 degrees, 29 minutes, 39 seconds East. If you have Google Earth downloaded in your computer you can see for yourself--a secret submarine, hiding in plain sight near the Chinese city of Dalian.

"China and the United States are in a nuclear arms race," wrote Kristensen and colleagues in a report last November. "Not an arms race of the intensity and proportions of the U.S.-Soviet arms race during the Cold War, but an arms race nonetheless. The U.S.-Chinese adversarial nuclear relationship goes back to the Korean War, but the scope and sophistication of the race appears to be increasing."

The Defense Department has been keeping an eye on this too, reporting how the sub's missiles are part of a plan to "give China a more survivable and flexible nuclear force." In the DOD's annual report to Congress on Chinese military might; the JIN-class subs are mentioned, among other places, on p. 19.

The idea of Chinese military aspirations is no surprise. But finding proof right there on your own computer?

(Copyright 2007 by ABC News. All rights reserved.)

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