“But there is every evidence every day that there has been an increase in militarisation”, said Mr Kerry.
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Loesche cites reports coming from the BBC that China has deployed long-range surface to air missiles in the South China Sea as a show of force.
To the chagrin of many other nations, including Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam, China claims almost the entirety of the South China Sea, through which passes an estimated 30 percent of the world’s shipping.
On February 17, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said it has confirmed that surface-to-air missiles have been deployed by the Chinese military on Woody Island, a part of the Paracel Islands chain in the hotly disputed South China Sea.
The reported Chinese move followed a US naval operation in which a missile destroyer sailed close to another island in the Paracels last month.
The current furore over “pork-free” signs displayed at food outlets in the country is getting way more attention from the Malaysian government than the worrying build-up of surface-to-air missiles by the government of China in the South China Sea.
USA officials say China has reclaimed 3,200 acres (1,300 hectares) of land, mostly in the Spratly Island group and has recently conducted test flights to an island there with a newly built 10,000-foot (3,050-meter) airstrip.
The White House on Wednesday revealed a measure of its intelligence on China’s activities in the South China Sea, suggesting that Beijing is speeding up construction of military facilities in contested territories of the busy waterway. “We have sovereignty there, so we can choose whether to militarize it”.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters the “limited and necessary self-defence facilities” China had on islands and reefs where it has personnel stationed was “consistent with the right to self-protection that China is entitled to under worldwide law”.
A foreign ministry spokesman also sidesteps confirming the deployment, but says, “Whether or not to deploy defense facilities on the islands is totally within China’s sovereignty”.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5-trillion in global trade passes every year, and has been building runways and other infrastructure on artificial islands to bolster its title.
Beijing has controlled all of the Paracels, which are also claimed by Hanoi and Taipei, since seizing several from South Vietnam in a brief, bloody battle towards the end of the Vietnam War.
“When President Xi [Jinping] was here in Washington, he stood in the Rose Garden with President [Barack] Obama and said China will not militarise in the South China Sea”, US Secretary of State John Kerry was quoted as saying by the Wall Street Journal on 17 February.
“Something like this by China will definitely be seen as a provocative move not just by the United States but all the countries in the region”, explained Al Jazeera’s Marga Ortigas.
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Fox News first reported missile launchers and a radar system had arrived on Woody Island in recent days, referring to satellite imagery.
