(WN):China, in an early test of U.S.
President Donald Trump, has nearly finished building almost two dozen
structures on artificial islands in the South China Sea that appear designed to
house long-range surface-to-air missiles, two U.S. officials told Reuters. The
development is likely to raise questions about whether and how the United
States will respond, given its vows to take a tough line on China in the South
China Sea.
China claims almost all the waters, which
carry a third of the world's maritime traffic. Brunei, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. Trump's administration has
called China's island building in the South China Sea illegal.
Building the concrete structures with
retractable roofs on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross reefs, part of the Spratly
Islands chain where China already has built military-length airstrips, could be
considered a military escalation, the U.S. officials said in recent days,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
"It is not like the Chinese to build
anything in the South China Sea just to build it, and these structures resemble
others that house SAM batteries, so the logical conclusion is that's what they
are for," said a U.S. intelligence official, referring to surface-to-air
missiles.
Another official said the structures appeared
to be 20 meters (66 feet) long and 10 meters (33 feet) high. A Pentagon
spokesman said the United States remained committed to "non-militarization
in the South China Sea" and urged all claimants to take actions consistent
with international law. In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng
Shuang said on Wednesday he was aware of the report, though did not say if
China was planning on placing missiles on the reefs.
"China carrying out normal construction
activities on its own territory, including deploying necessary and appropriate
territorial defense facilities, is a normal right under international law for
sovereign nations," he told reporters.
In his Senate confirmation hearing last month, U.S. Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson raised China's ire when he said Beijing should be denied access
to the islands it is building in the South China Sea.
Tillerson subsequently softened his language,
and Trump further reduced tensions by pledging to honor the long-standing U.S.
"one China" policy in a Feb. 10 telephone call with Chinese President
Xi Jinping.
***Longer
Range***
Greg Poling, a South China Sea expert at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said in a
December report that China apparently had installed weapons, including
anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, on all seven of the islands it has
built in the South China Sea.
The officials said the new structures were
likely to house surface-to-air missiles that would expand China's air defense
umbrella over the islands. They did not give a time line on when they believed
China would deploy missiles on the islands.
"It certainly raises the tension,"
Poling said. "The Chinese have gotten good at these steady increases in
their capabilities." On Tuesday, the Philippines said Southeast Asian
countries saw China's installation of weapons in the South China Sea as
"very unsettling" and have urged dialogue to stop an escalation of
"recent developments."
Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay did
not say what provoked the concern but said the 10-member Association of South
East Asian Nations, or ASEAN, hoped China and the United States would ensure
peace and stability.
***Political
Test***
The U.S. intelligence official said the
structures did not pose a significant military threat to U.S. forces in the
region, given their visibility and vulnerability. Building them appeared to be
more of a political test of how the Trump administration would respond, he
said.
"The logical response would also be political
something that should not lead to military escalation in a vital strategic
area," the official said. Chas Freeman, a China expert and former
assistant secretary of defense, said he was inclined to view such installations
as serving a military purpose bolstering China's claims against those of other
nations - rather than a political signal to the United States.
"There is a tendency here in Washington
to imagine that it's all about us, but we are not a claimant in the South China
Sea," Freeman said. "We are not going to challenge China's possession
of any of these land features in my judgment. If that's going to happen, it's
going to be done by the Vietnamese, or the Filipinos or the Malaysians, who are
the three counter-claimants of note."
He said it was an "unfortunate, but not
(an) unpredictable development." Tillerson told the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee last month that China's building of islands and putting
military assets on them was "akin to Russia's taking Crimea" from Ukraine.
In his written responses to follow-up
questions, he softened his language, saying that in the event of an unspecified
"contingency," the United States and its allies "must be capable
of limiting China's access to and use of" those islands to pose a threat.
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