The recent satellite photographs published by Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) shows the construction of the hangars on three reclaimed islands where Beijing has built military bases.
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Almost a month after the Hague-based court invalidated China’s vast territorial claims in the South China Sea, the Chinese announced they have been conducting aerial combat patrols in the region regardless.
The rapid construction of the hangars, however, “indicates that this is likely to change”.
Asked if he will bring up the favorable ruling of the United Nations arbitral court in July voiding China’s claim to nearly all of the South China Sea, he replied: “I don’t know what my friends will bring up as a subject matter”. Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have overlapping claims.
Ramos is on a mission to rekindle friendly relations with China strained by an worldwide court ruling over disputed waters in the South China Sea in favor of the Philippines.
China reacted angrily to the verdict, with Xinhua, the country’s official news agency, slamming what it described as an “ill-founded” ruling, declaring the decision “null and void”.
China’s coast guard vessels routinely sail around the islands, usually two to four at a time.
The United States has urged China and the other claimants not to militarize their holdings in the South China Sea.
China’s project of creating whole new islands from sand piled atop coral reefs in the highly contested Spratly group has been a particular source of tension with the U.S. New satellite photos show work proceeding on what seem to be hardened concrete airplane hangars suitable for housing Chinese air force planes, including strategic bombers and inflight refuelers.
The flurry of Chinese activity in the disputed waters follows a period of sustained pressure on China about its activities in the South China Sea, and Chinese criticism of what it saw as Japanese interference in that dispute.
MIT professor M. Taylor Fravel said, “China has given itself the option to use the reefs as military facilities, but has not decided yet to what degree it is going to use them”.
TOKYO – (UPDATE – 12:51 p.m.) Japan summoned China’s ambassador Tuesday after the country’s ships were spotted near disputed East China Sea islands for a fifth straight day.
All the hangars show signs of structural strengthening, the think tank said.
“They are far thicker than you would build for any civilian goal”, Gregory B. Poling, director of the center’s Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, told the New York Times on Monday, Aug. 8 in a telephone interview.
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Ramos gave no details of his itinerary or of those he planned to meet, except for Wu Shicun, who heads the National Institute for South China Sea Studies think-tank, based on China’s southern island of Hainan. Operated with targeting drones, they could strike both ships and land targets.
