“It’s doing nothing to make the situation there more stable and more secure”.
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New Zealand strongly urged China to refrain from stoking tensions in the South China Sea after its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island.
The US Defense Department on Wednesday said commercial imagery indicated that China had deployed a surface-to-air missile system on a disputed outpost in the South China Sea, and said the action was increasing tensions in the region.
According to Lopez, Woody is far from the Kalayaan island group also in the South China where it has a population of about 200 Filipino families.
Following a meeting with Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi denied a reporter’s suggestion that Beijing had constructed a missile system on Woody Island in the Paracel chain.
Hong’s comments represent China’s attempt to turn that accusation back on Washington, a cause to which it has rallied its entirely state-controlled media outlets.
But the United States says it will continue to conduct “freedom of navigation patrols” by aircraft and ships to ensure unimpeded passage through the region, where Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines have rival claims with Taiwan and Vietnam.
“If you deploy such sophisticated armament, that means you intend to us it”, said Vice Admiral Alexander Lopez, the head of the military’s Western Command based on the island province of Palawan.
US Secretary of State John Kerry slammed China for its increased “militarisation” in the South China Sea and said Washington expects to have “very serious” talks with Beijing.
Taiwan and China claim nearly the whole of the South China Sea, including the Paracel chain.
Vice Admiral Alexander Lopez, the Philippine military commander responsible for the South China Sea, said any such missile deployment would be a concern for the global community.
“Vietnam’s reaction is not strong enough amid China’s assertion and militarization within Vietnam’s sovereignty”, Professor Tuong Lai, a South China Sea analyst who served as an adviser to the late prime minister Vo Van Kiet, told VOA Vietnamese on Friday.
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“Jet fighters from the United States, an outside country, may feel uneasy when making provocative flights in the region”. While the statement does not mention the South China Sea or island-building, it does add a new commitment by all the parties to “non-militarization”. Beijing confirmed the presence of “weapons” on the island, reported the Global Times newspaper, which has close ties with the ruling Communist party, but stopped short of acknowledging there had been a new missile deployment, saying defense measures there were “nothing new”.
