Le Hai Binh, a spokesperson for the Vietnamese foreign ministry, said that a Chinese aircraft had landed on the 3000 meter airstrip on Fiery Cross Reef.
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“Relevant activity falls completely within China’s sovereignty”, said Hua, stressing that her country “has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters”.
The United States has expressed concern about rising tensions in line with its growing criticism of China’s reclamation work and attempt to claim territorial waters around the new islands. These steps have included patroling the disputed islands with guided-missile destroyers, stationing the USS Ronald Reagan in Japan, and flying bombers near reefs.
India’s new satellite monitoring station in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, gives the country not only the ease of tracking and receiving data from India-launched satellites, but also be a strategic asset in the South China Sea region.
Almost 50 young Filipinos returned yesterday from remote Philippine-held Pag-asa island in the South China Sea where they had staged a week-long protest against Beijing’s claims in the disputed waterway.
Tensions have risen in the last two years after China transformed disputed reefs in the Spratly Island chain into islands that rival claimants fear Beijing could use to project its military might far from the Chinese mainland and threaten their territories. “We have made this case clear repeatedly, and we will continue to make it”.
China is asserting sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, which is also claimed in whole or in part by Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Over the past five years, the Obama administration has systematically inflamed unsafe flashpoints throughout the Indo-Pacific, including in the South China Sea, as part of its “pivot to Asia” aimed at undermining China’s diplomatic, economic and military position.
China has confirmed that a test flight by a civilian plane landed on an artificial island built in the Spratlys, the first time Beijing has used a runway in the area.
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“Vietnam resolutely opposes China’s action and demands that Beijing stop it and not repeat any similar move, as well as apply practical and specific measures to contribute to the maintenance of peace, stability, security, safety, and freedom of navigation and aviation in the sea area”, the spokesperson stated.
