China is expected to add substantial military infrastructure, including communications and surveillance systems to the artificial islands, the report added. But it said it will allow China to enhance its long-term presence in the area.
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The SCS has become a major flash point for military tensions between China and the USA in recent years as Beijing which claims sovereignty over nearly all of the disputed waters sought to assert its claim by building artificial islands with military facilities.
“China is using coercive tactics…to advance their interests in ways that are calculated to fall below the threshold of provoking conflict”, DoD’s report rightly emphasizes.
Last year’s report to Congress included just two brief paragraphs on the effort; it said China had reclaimed only 500 acres as of December 2014.
The report “hyped up” China’s military threat and lack of transparency, “deliberately distorted” Chinese defence policies and “unfairly” depicted Chinese activities in the East and South China seas, Yang was quoted as saying. Washington has accused Beijing of militarising the South China Sea while Beijing, in turn, has criticized increased USA naval patrols and exercises in Asia.
“China continues to invest in military programs and weapons created to improve power projection, anti-access area denial and operations in emerging domains such as cyberspace, space and the electromagnetic spectrum”, said Abraham Denmark, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia.
Vietnam, China and Taiwan all claim the Paracels, and the three along with the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim all or parts of the Spratlys.
The report, which traditionally draws a strong reaction from the Chinese government, comes ahead of a visit to Vietnam and Japan this month by President Barack Obama and amid increasing tensions between the U.S., China and Southeast Asian nations over sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.
General Fang Fenghui, a member of China’s Central Military Commission, told General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the two sides should “refrain from actions detrimental to the relations between the two countries and the two militaries”, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday.
The report has also repeats the accusation that the Chinese government and military engage in cyber attacks on USA government computer systems, a charge Beijing has denied. It has modernized “its short-medium-and-intermediate-range ballistic missiles, high-performance aircraft, integrated air defense networks, information operations capabilities and amphibious and airborne assault units”.
“Foremost among China’s military assets capable of reaching Guam, the DF-26 IRBM represents the culmination of decades of advancements to China’s conventional ballistic missile forces”, the commission’s report says.
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“China’s leaders could be more willing to resort to military force in such a crisis if they believed they could successfully neutralize Guam”, the congressional commission’s report says, because the territory would be a key point of reinforcement for USA forces operating farther to the west.
