A view shows construction on Mischief Reef in the Spratly islands, in the disputed South China Sea in this July 22 satellite image released by the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative at Center for Strategic and International Studies to Reuters on Tuesday.
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The hangars all show signs of structural strengthening, the CSIS said.
Japan summoned China’s ambassador Tuesday after the country’s ships were spotted near disputed East China Sea islands for a fifth straight day.
The photographs indicating further militarisation of the already tense region emerged less than a month after an global tribunal ruled that China doesn’t have historical rights over the South China Sea, handing petitioner and Beijing’s much smaller neighbour, the Philippines, a boost in the ongoing tussle.
Dr Chong Ja Ian, an worldwide relations expert at the National University of Singapore, told TODAY the structures on the islands indicated China’s wish to reserve the right to deploy military assets on the features it controls in the Spratlys.
The hangars, in three different sizes, could accommodate any planes used by China’s air force, the think tank said.
Asked about others, such as China’s former deputy minister for Foreign Affairs Fu Ying, Ramos said he did not know yet. But the rapid construction of reinforced hangars at all three features indicates that this is likely to change.
China has repeatedly denied doing so, criticizing USA patrols and exercises for increasing tensions. Not only would this escalate disputes with other regional claimant states like Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines, but it would unquestionably pose a serious threat to America’s “freedom of navigation” operations.
China’s Defense Ministry, which could not be reached for comment, earlier said that Beijing is preparing its troops and citizens for a possible “water war” in the South China Sea region.
“They are far thicker than you would build for any civilian objective”, Mr Gregory Poling, director of the centre’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, said yesterday. Poling added, “They’re reinforced to take a strike”.
China has indicated it is open to talks with the Philippines outside the tribunal ruling to settle the dispute.
The admiral said he was confident the U.S. Navy would continue to sail close to China’s artificial islands in what are called freedom of navigation missions to reinforce the stipulations of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, although he said such decisions are made in Washington.
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Were China to move forward on possible plans to deploy military aircraft to its facilities in the Spratlys, it would essentially complete construction of China’s unsinkable aircraft carriers in this area, and give China greater control over the highly-desirable South China Sea “strategic triangle” created by the Paracels, the Scarborough Shoal, and the Spratlys.
