A US military spokesperson confirmed, Wednesday, that the Pentagon is aware of a “surface-to-air missile system” on a “disputed outpost in the South China Sea”.
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Kerry urged China to resolve disputes through diplomacy not unilateral actions and force.
He said that the report of the deployment, in a story Tuesday by Fox News, was “an attempt by certain Western media to create news stories”, and that the installation of “national defense facilities on China’s own territory has nothing to do with militarization in the South China Sea”.
“When President Xi [Jinping] was here in Washington, he stood in the Rose Garden with President [Barack] Obama and said China will not militarise in the South China Sea”, US Secretary of State John Kerry was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal on 17 February.
It is hard to say that China’s President Xi Jinping isn’t consistent.
“We will conduct more, and more complex, freedom-of-navigation operations as time goes on in the South China Sea”, Harris said at a briefing in Tokyo.
“Commercial imagery indicates that China has deployed a surface-to-air missile system on a disputed outpost in the South China Sea”, Urban said.
“I don’t think it’s lost on any of the parties that are in a disputed position in the South China Sea that any blow-up of activities there would be very bad for security and economic issues in the region”, he said. The report on the missile batteries came as Obama wrapped up a two-day Southeast Asian summit in California where leaders voiced concern over Bijing’s military build-up in the strategic and resource-rich area.
The missiles arrived in the past week and, according to a US official, appeared to show the HQ-9 air defense system, which has a range of 125 miles (200 km) and would pose a threat to any airplanes flying close by, the report said.
Called Yongxingdao by China, Woody Island has an artificial harbor, an airport, roads, army posts and other buildings.
“We have said repeatedly with respect to China that the standard that should be applied to all countries with respect to the South China Sea is no militarization”, Kerry said.
China says it is building the islands mainly for civil purposes and that the intention is to provide more goods and services to the global community. Many countries of the 10-member bloc are in dispute with China over the ownership of some islands in the region.
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Aside from reneging on its previous pronouncement, the Philippines said China’s actions also puts serious doubts over the latter’s other publicly declared commitments.
