And it came as USA officials confirmed that China has deployed fighter jets, J-11s and J-7s, to the disputed Woody Island.
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Secretary of State John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart locked horns over a range of issues Tuesday, agreeing to disagree in a State Department press conference over South Korean missile defense and the contested South China Sea.
“We do not accept the DPRK’s nuclear missile programme and we do not recognise the DPRK as a nuclear weapons state”, Wang said.
“Every day”, Mr. Wang said, “advanced armaments and equipment [are] emerging in the South China Sea, including the strategic bombers, the missile destroyers”.
During the past decades, some countries illegally occupied China’s islands and militarized them heavily, not only with radars, but also with all kinds of artillery, he said.
Ahead of Wang’s visit to Washington, a spokeswoman likened China’s military buildup on Woody Island to the U.S. Navy’s in Hawaii. The Chinese Foreign Minister said freedom of navigation in the region has not been a problem, and that all parties need to step up their demilitarization efforts.
Beijing on Wednesday insisted that Manila violated agreements on maritime conduct in the disputed South China Sea, The Philippine Star reports.
The US claims that China has constructed more than 3000 acres of artificial land on reefs and shoals in the area in the last 19 months.
Reports on 17 February revealed Beijing was installing two batteries of surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island, located in the Paracels archipelago.
This file aerial view taken on July 27, 2012 shows part of the city of Sansha on the island of Yongxing, also known as Woody island in the disputed Paracel chain, which China now considers part of Hainan province.
In his news conference with Wang, Kerry said moves by China, Vietnam and others had created an “escalatory cycle”.
Then on Monday, a US think tank reported that China has built new radar facilities in the Spratly Islands, which lie further south.
“Beijing claims nearly the whole of the South China Sea – through which a third of the world’s oil passes – while several other littoral states have competing claims, as does Taiwan”. USA officials told CNN it was not the first time China has placed fighter jets on the island after expanding the runway there in 2014.
The United States and China say they are nearing a deal over UN sanctions on North Korea, raising the prospect of finalizing the resolution to punish the North within this week. “I believe China seeks hegemony in East Asia”. He accused other countries of military construction on what he asserted were Chinese reefs and atolls.
State media also has an important clarification to make, as CCTV puts it: “Non-militarization of South China Sea islands doesn’t mean no military facilities”.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies said satellite imagery show possible radar installations on Gaven, Hughes, Johnson South and Cuarteron reefs that could be key to helping China establish effective control over the strategically vital area’s sea and airspace.
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Wang countered by saying China has “historic” claims in the sea and criticizing actions by the Philippines, which China says has broken earlier accords over the area.
