Soon after he spoke, US government sources confirmed that China recently deployed fighter jets to Woody Island.
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China could be constructing high-frequency radar on disputed islands in the South China Sea, a think tank in Washington, D.C., stated in a recent report.
The top US military commander in the Pacific warned Tuesday that China was bent on achieving “hegemony in East Asia”, as Beijing’s top diplomat held talks in Washington with Secretary of State John F. Kerry amid rising tensions over who controls the vital South China Sea.
Wang added that a UN Security Council resolution against North Korea could be passed in the “near future”. Vietnam and Taiwan also claim Woody Island in the Paracels Island group as their territory.
The fighter jet sightings follow the placement of HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles on the 210-hectare island, known in Chinese as Yongxing and called Phu Lam by Vietnam, which also claims it.
The militarisation of facilities in the South China Sea does not help efforts to resolve maritime claims, United States Secretary of State John Kerry said, after satellite images released by a USA think-tank showed China may be installing a powerful radar system on a disputed island in the Spratlys.
“China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea and you’d have to believe in the flat Earth to think otherwise”, Admiral Harry Harris said at a Senate committee hearing in Washington.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she had no specific information about the CSIS report, but said China had undisputed sovereignty over the area.
China on Wednesday complained the media were ignoring radars and weapons deployed by other claimants in the South China Sea, and unfairly targeting China, following reports of its deployment of fighter jets and radars in the disputed waterway, Reuters reports.
The South China Sea has become a flashpoint as China and countries in the region seek control of trade routes and under-sea mineral deposits.
“If a radar is there for some sort of normal navigation process and there’s no missile attached to it, there are ways to work these things out”, Mr. Kerry said at Tuesday’s joint news briefing with Mr. Wang.
“The reason that we’ve been able to cooperate in areas where our interests and our values are aligned, despite the fact that we have clear differences on some other issues, is that both the United States and China are deeply committed to an open and frank dialogue”, Kerry said.
China’s Ministry of Defence said on its microblog yesterday China had established “necessary defensive facilities” that were “legal and appropriate”.
The US and China have agreed on key points related to punishing North Korea over its defiant nuclear test and rocket launch during the Beijing Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s ongoing visit to Washington.
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China, North Korea’s most important ally and largest trading partner, has historically been reluctant to put undue pressure on its southern neighbour for fear of destabilising the country and unleashing a flood of refugees across their border.
