Commercial planes should continue flying over the South China Sea despite the risk of “miscalculation” from the apparent placement of surface-to-air missile launchers in the disputed region, Julie Bishop has said.
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Hong Lei, a spokesman for China’s foreign affairs ministry, said on Friday that demilitarisation in the region is not a matter for just a single country, the Global Times reported.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea, including small islands such as the Paracels.
In turn, China accused the USA of displaying its military might in the South China Sea where the disputed islands are located.
Coast guard and fishing facilities have also been expanded, along with fuel storage tanks and housing for more than 1,000 civilians in what was declared “Sansha City” in 2012, Chinese analysts say.
“If China wants to avoid falling into the Thucydides Trap, as President Xi describes it, then resolving disputes in the South China Sea should be done through worldwide law, through all of those mechanisms that are available to us”.
Beijing claims almost all of the South China Sea.
Four Asean nations-the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei-are claimants in maritime disputes in the region.
New Zealand, the first developed country to recognise China as a market economy and to sign a bilateral free trade deal, was leveraging its relationship with China to urge measures to lower tensions, Key said.
In 1959, the Chinese government set up an administrative office and the ensuing government facilities on the Yongxing Island.
This image with notations provided by ImageSat International N.V., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, shows satellite images of Woody Island, the largest of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
Bonnie Glaser, a military analyst at the Centre for Security and International Studies in Washington, said the Paracels build-up was a likely precursor to similar military deployments on China’s recent reclamations in the Spratlys.
In a statement issued recently to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, the Chinese defense ministry said China has the right to install military infrastructure on its territory as these are necessary for the protection of national security and sovereignty.
China had sent missiles to the island twice previously for exercises and in one of the exercises China actually employed the weapons system, using an HQ-9 missile to shoot down a drone, according to the site.
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The Paracels have been under Chinese rule for over 40 years, deeming them the most fundamentally important foothold for China to defend, the article claimed.
