Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Secretary of State John Kerry wouldn’t give details of any draft proposal, which would punish North Korea for its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch that violated UN Security Council resolutions.
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The head of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command said Tuesday that the branch must invest in next-generation anti-surface missiles, amid reports that the Chinese military is building its defense capabilities in the South China Sea.
Just last week, U.S. officials said China had deployed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island in the Paracels farther north, sparking concern about the growing militarisation of the South China Sea.
Citing “two US officials” who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Fox News reported that USA intelligence had spotted the fighter jets on Woody Island, which has effectively been under Chinese control for more than 40 years but is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.
Beijing accuses Washington of creating a “pretext to make a fuss” over the South China Sea disputes, noting that its military deployments are no different than USA deployments on Hawaii.
Once again, this news likely does not bode well for already rising tensions in the region where Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and Indonesia all hold competing claims to a vast area that China claims as its own, dating back to ancient times.
A spokesman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, said the deployment of the defense facilities of China is reasonable an appropriate.
“If a radar is there for some sort of normal navigation process and there’s no missile attached to it, there are ways to work these things out”, Mr. Kerry said at Tuesday’s joint news briefing with Mr. Wang. A leading U.S. military officer told Congress that China was seeking to control East Asia.
On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying restated Beijing’s position that the Spratly Islands are “indisputably China’s territory” and claimed “necessary and limited deployment of defensive facilities is the exercise of China’s self-preservation rights, which are granted by global law”.
Just last week, Chinese surface-to-air missiles were found on Woody Island, part of the Paracel Islands, which Beijing claims are simply defense systems to protect their manned islands.
“You’d have to believe in a flat Earth to think otherwise”, he said.
Beijing is installing radar facilities on its artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea, an American think tank has said, in a move analysts warned would “exponentially improve” the country’s monitoring capacities.
“We don’t hope to see any more close-up military reconnaissance, or the despatch of missile destroyers or strategic bombers in the South China Sea”, he said. US Ambassador to Asean Nina Hachigian called US freedom of navigation operations “routine” and “lawful”.
“The reason that we’ve been able to cooperate in areas where our interests and our values are aligned, despite the fact that we have clear differences on some other issues, is that both the United States and China are deeply committed to an open and frank dialogue”, Kerry said.
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Images of other small reefs nearby which China has transformed into artificial islands ─ Gaven, Hughes, and Johnson South ─ revealed other features identified by CSIS as possible radar towers, gun emplacements, bunkers, helipads, and quays.
