The press conference was delayed after reports emerged that China had deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile system on Woody Island, one of the disputed islands it controls in the South China Sea.
Advertisement
Ahead of Bishop’s visit, President Barack Obama and the leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations called Tuesday for the peaceful resolution of the region’s maritime disputes.
Jin Canrong, a professor of worldwide relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said China installing the missile system on Woody Island was a direct response to the Triton patrol.
Vietnam also claims the Spratlys and the Paracels as sovereign territory, extending Vietnam’s EEZ across much of the region and bringing it into direct conflict with China. Woody Island has been under China’s control since 1956, and is a prefecture level city of the southern Chinese province of Hainan.
China denied that surface-to-air missile launchers had been deployed to the island. But it is likely to be China’s HQ-9 SAM, the country’s new generation, medium- to long-range, active radar-homing air-defense missile, according to Globalsecurity.org, which tracks military weapons.
Taiwan says China has positioned anti-aircraft missiles on a disputed island in the China Sea.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi had earlier made a similar statement – accusing Western media of creating stories, but also stressing that any “limited self-protection operations” were in line with national policy and global law.
He said the media should instead focus on Chinese-built lighthouses on the islands ensuring naval safety.
“We do so because unilateral actions are in nobody’s interest”, Mr Turnbull said then.
The report used images from ImageSat International, a civilian agency. “It will not affect the freedom of navigation and overflight that all other countries are entitled to under worldwide law”.
China is also reportedly building a helicopter base at Duncan Island in the Paracel chain.
They show dredging and filling at two new sites in the island chain about 15 kilometers from Woody Island.
‘We discussed the need for tangible steps in the South China Sea to lower tensions, ‘ Obama said, calling for ‘a halt to further reclamation, new construction and militarisation of disputed areas’. Beijing conducted test flights to a new airstrip there last month, using civilian aircraft.
The US has expressed concern about freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and has been testing China’s expansive claims by sailing ships and sending planes into the waters and airspace around islands and other formations controlled by Beijing.
A statement released by Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said that it had first-hand intelligence that confirmed the existence of missile batteries in the region, which is hotly disputed by China and its neighbors. “It isn’t surprising that they are deploying SAMs to defend them”, she said.
Advertisement
The news comes as South East Asian regional leaders end a two-day meeting in California where South China Sea had been a topic of debate. “We will continue to help our allies and partners strengthen their maritime capabilities”. But tensions in the sea – through which one-third of the world’s oil passes – have mounted in recent months since China transformed contested reefs in the Spratly islands further south into artificial islands capable of supporting military facilities.
