Uhhh, why don't they build these underground or camouflage them at all? I find it hard to believe sensitive compounds aren't camouflaged for satellite imagery.
I'd imagine cost. Putting things underground takes a lot of time and costs many times more than putting it above ground. If you need something in a hurry and don't have infinite resources, you really don't want to be digging.
If this is indeed a secret Chinese facility I'd say it's done its job. We know it's there but we haven't the faintest clue what it does. In the modern age of spy satellites, hiding something completely is likely more expensive than ever before, obfuscating it seems like a valid strategy now.
As someone who visited Wolfschanze Hitler's secret hideout in Poland, (where assasination attempt take place), I can assure you, you don't need to hide a compound under ground, it can be perfectly concealed on the ground in forest, if you really want it to stay invisible.
Google Maps is just free public satellite imagery. You can barely make out people (interestingly enough, I just realized most people are filtered out of the images). The CIA's had birds for years that are good enough to read license plates on moving cars. I'm sure that, if anything interesting is in that desert, they knew what it was before it was even built.
