China appears to have built models with the dimensions of a US aircraft carrier and other warships in a western desert, illustrating how the People’s Liberation Army is focused on increasingly realistic training as tension with the U.S. rises over Taiwan.

       Satellite imagery from a remote desert in the western Xinjiang region of China that the PLA uses for exercises shows outlines in the shape of a Nimitz-class carrier and at least two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, according to details provided by two Colorado-based firms. The findings show the carrier-size structure appears to be built on railway tracks to enable its movement.

       Evidence of the ship mock-ups—presumably designed for target practice—comes amid concerns over Taiwan, the self-governed island Beijing claims is its sovereign territory and the U.S. supplies with military hardware. The PLA is increasingly active in the skies and seas around Taiwan, while the U.S. and Western allies step up naval patrols in apparent efforts to deter Beijing from taking action to gain control of the island.

       Photographs of the ship-like structures by Maxar Technologies Inc. and interpreted by AllSource Analysis Inc. show their dimensions match the hull size of U.S. naval vessels, but with minimal or no deck equipment or other features of a real ship.

       There are about eight mock-ups of vessels plus unidentified equipment that appears to be sensors spread over a vast area that China in the past has used for training, said Renny Babiarz, an analyst at AllSource Analysis, which first discovered the site.

       “Part of China’s testing for weapons systems is now incorporating detailed examples of U.S. equipment, and U.S. equipment that is in the Pacific Theater," said Mr. Babiarz.

       A spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, Wang Wenbin, told a briefing Monday in Beijing that he wasn’t aware of the situation when asked about the satellite images.

       The photos of the ship-like structures are the latest illustration of how satellite imagery can give clues to the priorities of China’s secretive military. Earlier imagery from space has demonstrated construction of runways and other signs of military-base building on islands in the South China Sea, while other such photography has shown road-making and new structures along China’s contested borders with Bhutan and India. This year, satellites have also detected signs of missile silo construction around China as Beijing expands its nuclear arsenal.

       Satellite photography has likewise been instrumental in opening the world’s eyes to the scale of camps in Xinjiang that human-rights groups say have interned Muslim minorities and which Beijing calls training facilities.

       Navies around the world construct realistic-looking targets for practice; Iran for instance has used a copy of a U.S. aircraft carrier. For around two decades, China is known to have used ship mock-ups in its remote deserts for target practice, and in 2013 a Taiwan media report reported strikes by a missile dubbed the “carrier killer," the DF-21D, on a structure designed to look like the body of a U.S. aircraft carrier.

       Pentagon press secretary John Kirby declined to address the boat mock-ups, saying he hadn’t seen the images.

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       Mr. Kirby pointed to an annual Pentagon report on China’s military power released last week as an indicator of Defense Department concerns about Chinese capabilities. The report charts an overall increase in the size and potency of China’s armed forces.

       It also points to significant efforts by the PLA to make more realistic its training of the armed forces, including by stepping up live-fire target missile practice.

       “I think it makes it very clear what our understanding of their intentions are and their capabilities are and how they’re developing those capabilities and to what ends," Mr. Kirby said.

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