China appears to be deploying weapons systems on all seven of the reefs it has reclaimed in the South China Sea, according to photographs released by a Washington-based think tank.
The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said it began tracking in June and July the construction of identical hexagon-shaped structures to house the weapons on Fiery Cross Reef (Yongshu Reef, 永暑島), Mischief Reef (Meiji Reef, 美濟礁) and Subi Reef (Jhubi Reef, 渚碧礁), where China has already completed military grade airstrips and installed radar.
“It now seems that these structures are an evolution of point-defense fortifications already constructed at China’s smaller facilities on Gaven [Nansyun, 南薰礁], Hughes [東門礁], Johnson [South] [Chigua Reef, 赤瓜礁] and Cuarteron [Huayang Reef, 華陽礁] reefs,” the unit of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said on its Web site.
Photo: AFP / CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative / DigitalGlobe
The installations call into question a pledge made by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not to militarize the disputed islands in the South China Sea, a US$5 trillion-a-year shipping route that the US has patrolled largely unchallenged since World War II.
China’s claims to more than 80 percent of the waters were dismissed by an international tribunal in July. Beijing said it would ignore the ruling.
US president-elect Donald Trump has cited what he said was China’s effort to build a “massive fortress” in the South China Sea as one reason for taking a more confrontational approach to relations.
He listed the project in a Fox News interview, while defending his decision to accept a telephone call from President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), calling into question the US’ “one China” policy.
“I don’t know why we have to be bound by a ‘one China’ policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade,” Trump said in the interview broadcast on Sunday.
The think tank said that anti-aircraft guns appear to have been installed on China’s four smaller reefs. Although they cannot be definitively identified, they were likely to be close-in weapons systems (CIWS) whose function was to detect and destroy incoming missiles and enemy aircraft, the group said.
“These gun and probable CIWS emplacements show that Beijing is serious about defense of its artificial islands in case of an armed contingency in the South China Sea,” it wrote. “Among other things, they would be the last line of defense against cruise missiles launched by the United States or others against these soon-to-be-operational air bases.”
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS