“In particular, in the future, the hangars give China the option to base or rotate military aircraft on the islands, either on a temporary basis or a permanent basis”.
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The forum, inaugurated in south China’s Boao city in Hainan, meets annually to discuss the most pressing issues in the region and the world at large. According to the China Times, Beijing’s attitude is clear: “The Nansha Islands are a Chinese core interest, and no matter what type of pressure or obstacles China encounters, it will never stop”.
The appointment came in the wake of Manila’s unilateral move to bring the South China Sea dispute to an arbitral tribunal in The Hague.
Beijing sees THAAD’s radar system, capable of peering into China’s military installations, as part of Washington’s strategy of containment, with the two powers clashing over China’s possible militarization of rocks and reefs in the disputed South China Sea.
Chinese fighter-plane hangars revealed in disturbing new satellite images of the South China Sea would allow Beijing to rapidly shift military hardware on to artificial islands to control the key waterways, Australia’s former national security adviser says.
The think-tank said in a report there was little evidence that China had deployed military aircraft to the outposts, but the “rapid construction” of reinforced hangars suggested that was likely to change.
In a statement, ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said China would welcome Ramos to visit China as a special envoy to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
Analysts opine the Su-34 aircraft would dominate the skies in the South China Sea as countries such as Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia which are opposed to China claiming the whole of the South China Sea, have poorly equipped air forces.
The images have emerged about a month after an global court in The Hague ruled against China’s claims in the resource-rich area, a decision rejected by Beijing.
Adm. Scott Swift also criticized China-Russia joint naval exercises planned next month in the South China Sea, saying the choice of location was not conducive to “increasing the stability within the region”.
READ: Philippines wins arbitration case vs.
While China may argue that these structures are for civilian use, “they are far thicker than you would build for any civilian objective”, CSIS Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative Director Gregory Poling told The New York Times.
Since then, Beijing has launched air patrols over the South China Sea, said it would consider declaring an air defense zone and vowed to continue work on man-made islands created from piling sand atop coral reefs in the highly contested Spratly group.
“I think it’s a mistake to take them individually and not look at them as a collective”.
“The idea is to use the South China Sea as a place to save lives, but not to kill people or to destroy lives”, he told reporters.
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But China has ignored the court’s ruling that none of its reefs and holdings in the Spratly Islands entitled it to a 200-mile exclusive economic zone.
