ssible Radar Suggests China Wants ‘Effective Control’ in D
China keep adding the building block of robust Air defense and area denial It make sense since Yongxin is so close to Yulin submarine base . The only base that is has access to Pacific without bypassing narrow strait controlled by Japan and US.
Combined with the planned Anti Submarine base . they guard the southern approach of Yulin
Poisputed Sea
By
FEB. 23, 2016
Photo
The People’s Liberation Army Navy patrolling on the Spratly Islands. Credit Reuters
HONG KONG —
may be building a series of radar facilities on artificial islands in disputed waters in the South China Sea, which would help it to establish “effective control” over sea and air in one of the world’s busiest waterways, according to a
released this week.
The report, released on Monday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, based on satellite images taken as recently as Feb. 12, comes less than a week after the United States said that China appeared to have deployed
on another island in the disputed sea, parts of which are claimed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
The possible radar facilities are far to the south of the missile batteries, on a series of artificial islands in the Spratly chain, closer to the shores of Vietnam, the Philippines and the island of Borneo than to China. In September, China’s president, Xi Jinping, speaking with President Obama at the White House,
that Beijing “does not intend to pursue militarization” in the Spratlys, or the Nansha, as the islands are known in China.
Last week, Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, said that the country’s artificial islands in the South China Sea were being used for
, pointing out that Beijing had built lighthouses and weather observation facilities there.
But experts say the satellite imagery tells another story.
One structure, built on a newly constructed island on Cuarteron Reef, more than 600 miles south of the southernmost Chinese province, appears to be a high-frequency radar center, made up of a series of tall poles laid out on a flat, rectangular surface, according to the report, compiled by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at C.S.I.S.
Such radar is
to detect ship traffic and measure ocean currents, and it can also
. Other likely radar sites, some with possible gun emplacements, are on Gaven Reef, Hughes Reef and Johnson South Reef in the Spratlys, the report said.
“Most people in this area recognize that the facilities that China has constructed are primarily for strategic reasons. They’re for military purposes, rather than civilian,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. “But that’s how China will spin it.”
Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday that she was unaware of the details of the report about possible radar facilities. But she reiterated Mr. Wang’s assertion that construction in the Spratlys was focused on “public goods,” urging journalists not to focus on military issues.
She left no doubt that China believed it had every right to do what it wanted on the artificial islands, saying its claim over the South China Sea islands was “indisputable.”
“China’s deployment of limited, necessary defense facilities on its own territory is its exercise of its right of self-defense to which a sovereign state is entitled under international law,” Ms. Hua said.
