PLAN SCS Bases/Islands/Vessels (Not a Strategy Page)

janjak desalin said:

i could, very well, mistaken ( i have no source), but was under the impression that all the clamor over the spratleys was because of anticipated offshore energy resources.

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Chinese Military Using Jamming Against U.S. Drones
Global Hawk targeted over disputed South China Sea islands

China tried to electronically jam U.S. drone flights over the South China Sea in a bid to thwart spying on disputed island military construction, U.S. officials said.

Global Hawk long-range surveillance drones were targeted by the jamming in at least one incident near the disputed Spratly Islands, where China is building military facilities on Fiery Cross Reef.

Details of the drone interference are classified. A spokesman for the Hawaii-based Pacific Command and Pacific Air Force declined to comment on the jamming.

On the Chinese challenge of the P-8 flight, Pacific Command spokesman Capt. Chris Sims sought to play down the incident.
“There have been a number of times when these PACOM forces have been queried by [People’s Liberation Army] PLA forces, but we have continued on without altering our planned activities,” Sims said.

Regarding South China Sea drone flights, Sims said there were no Chinese aerial intercepts against U.S. unmanned aerial vehicles over the disputed waters that China is claiming as its maritime domain. Sims said he cannot confirm jamming or electronic warfare reports, and would not elaborate in an email.

Pacific Air Forces spokeswoman Rebekah Clark declined to comment on Global Hawk surveillance flights near the Spratlys because of “operational security.”

The high-altitude drones are based at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam on a rotational basis. “From Guam, the Global Hawk supports U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance priorities, operational plans, and contingency operations through the Pacific Theater,” Clark said.

The RQ-4 Global Hawk is the Air Force’s premier high-altitude, long-range surveillance drone that can fly remotely piloted missions, and missions that are programmed in advance, and can survey 40,000 square miles in a day.

The 47-foot long jet-powered drone has a range of 8,700 miles and can fly up to 60,000 feet in altitude. Its flying time is up to 28 hours.

Last week, David Shear, the assistant defense secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said Global Hawks are deployed in Asia as one element of a buildup of forces near the South China Sea.

“We’re engaged in a long-term effort to bolster our capabilities in the region,” Shear told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “Just a few examples of the increases in our capabilities in the region include the deployment of Global Hawks and F-35s. Soon we will be adding to the stock of V-22s in Japan as well.”

more info here:

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Geographer said:

Is there any evidence China is reclaiming land at Scarborough Reef?

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"Looking from the angle of sovereignty, China's development of construction on its islands is no different at all from all the other types of construction going on around the country that I just mentioned," he said.

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In this Sunday, May 24, 2015 photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, an anti-surface gunne …
Such construction is designed to satisfy both military and civilian purposes such as disaster mitigation, fisheries protection and weather monitoring, Yang said.

State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke told reporters in Washington that the U.S. takes a different view. He said that China's extensive land reclamation had contributed to rising tensions in the region. He reiterated the U.S. stance that under international law, creating artificial islands does not alter the sovereignty of the surrounding seas.
Without directly mentioning the U.S., Yang said the issue had been brought to the fore by an increase in surveillance activities and an effort to "deliberately play up the issue in order to smear China's military and raise tensions in the region.

"I don't rule out that certain countries are looking for excuses to take certain actions," Yang said.

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Geographer said:

Is there any evidence China is reclaiming land at Scarborough Reef?

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janjak desalin said:

Hmmm?
Well, I just projected 1300 and 1900 km radii onto Fiery Cross Reef, in the Spratlys. I estimated a radius 1900 km for the DF-21D. Should FCR become a hard-core security position in the SCS, Flanker based aircraft and DF-21D AShM/ASBM, pretty much locks-up/down the entire SCS and the several straits that provide access.
Quite interesting! FCR seems to provide a dominating location within the SCS, rendering Woody Island, in the Paracels, rather redundant as a base for patrolling or combat operations.
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Here's another analysis:

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A 1947 map by American map publisher Rand McNally in 1947 gave China ownership over many islands in the South China Sea, the state-run China News Service reported Sunday.



CNS cited a report in Hong Kong's Ming Pao the same day as saying that a Collier's World Atlas and Gazetteer published in 1947 was recently spotted at a secondhand store in Vancouver.



In the collection, a map drawn by Rand McNally and titled Popular Map of China, French Indochina, Siam and Korea, contains detailed descriptions of the South China Sea islands and says that China owns some of the islands. The Paracels are specifically labeled as Chinese territory, according to the Ming Pao report.



The World Atlas and Gazetteer was published two years after World War II, when the US was desperate for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists to prevail in their civil war against Mao Zedong's Communists.



The book also contains a Rand McNally-drawn map of the Philippines and Spratly Islands. Although the Philippines have maintained close relations with the United States, none of six names the map producer used to identify the archipelago are Philippine terms, the report said.



The report also said that China's sovereignty claim over the South China Sea islands can be traced to before the Industrial Revolution.



Thitu island in the Spratlys, currently occupied by the Philippines which calls it Pag-asa, is labeled as Thi Tu Island on the old map. In the center of Thi Tu, there is a temple built by Chinese people in the Qing Dynasty, the report said. China refers to the islands as Zhongye island.



Citing John Price, a history professor at the University of Victoria, the report said that as the Cold War began US negotiators adopted an "avoidance strategy" during talks on the sovereignty of the South China Sea islands to avoid recognizing the new Communist regime in Beijing.

However, when it wanted to use Okinawa and other Pacific islands as military strongholds, the United States became strict and had clear-cut opinions in terms of sovereignty issues, according to Price, who said that the impact of injustice created by the US in those years is still being felt today.

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