Sina Delenda Est

China Has Placed Weapons on Disputed Spratly Islands in South China Sea
By CHRIS BUCKLEY

BEIJING — China signaled on Thursday that it had installed weapons on disputed South China Sea islands and would use them like a “slingshot” to repel threats, compounding tensions with the incoming Trump administration.
The Chinese message, in a Defense Ministry statement, suggested that China was further watering down a pledge made by Xi Jinping to not militarize the islands.
The comments left little doubt that such installations were part of China’s plan to deepen its territorial claim over the islands, which has raised tensions with its neighbors over their rival claims and with Washington over freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, one of the world’s busiest commercial waterways.
They were also likely to further complicate China’s already testy relations with President Donald J. Trump. 

China’s rapid creation of artificial islands in the South China Sea, expanding former reefs and outcrops into guarded permanent outposts, has already become a major source of tension with Washington.

Repeatedly this year, the Chinese have accused the United States of making “provocative” moves by sending warships near some of these islands, known as the Spratlys.

The Chinese have been creating harbors, runways and reinforced hangars big enough for military aircraft on the islands. 

But new satellite images made public this week appeared to reveal weapons emplacements for the first time.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, which released the images through its Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, said they showed “large antiaircraft guns and probable close-in weapons systems,” which can theoretically thwart cruise missile attacks.
The Defense Ministry statement, posted on its website in response to the images, did not specify what kinds of weapons the images showed but said any military hardware on the islands was reasonable. 

It repeated China’s contention that its construction on the islands is mainly for civilian purposes.
“As for necessary military facilities, they are primarily for defense and self-protection, and this is proper and legitimate,” the Defense Ministry said. 

“For instance, if someone was at the door of your home, cocky and swaggering, how could it be that you wouldn’t prepare a slingshot?”

Fiery Cross Reef
Weapons systems are visible on Chinese outposts in the South China Sea.

Satellite images by CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative/DigitalGlobe

There was no immediate comment from Mr. Trump or his transition team.
Mr. Trump recently angered Chinese officials by holding a phone conversation with Tsai Ing-wen, the president of Taiwan, an island that Beijing deems a breakaway province of China. 

It had been nearly four decades since a United States president had such direct contact with a Taiwanese leader.
In an interview broadcast on Sunday, Mr. Trump also criticized China over its trade imbalance with America, its military activities in the South China Sea and its ties to North Korea. 

China was “building a massive fortress in the middle of the South China Sea, which they shouldn’t be doing,” he said in the interview on Fox News.
During his campaign, Mr. Trump dwelled on accusations that China had systematically sapped American industrial might, and he has indicated that trade issues will be a priority in dealings with Beijing. 

But the latest disclosures suggest how seemingly remote islands in the South China Sea could become a source of serious tensions, even military strife.
The Spratlys are the subject of an especially volatile mix of competing claims. 

Parts of the archipelago are also claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan. And the possibility of undersea oil and gas deposits has exacerbated the rivalries.
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has moved in recent months to ease tensions with China, and to distance his country from Washington. 

Even so, the Philippines keeps defense treaties with the United States.
But China, with the world’s second-biggest economy and a swelling military budget, has established an intimidating dominance across much of the South China Sea. 

And the latest satellite images appeared to confirm its deepening military grip on the Spratlys.
The steps “show that Beijing is serious about defense of its artificial islands in case of an armed contingency in the South China Sea,” the Asia Maritime Defense Initiative said in its report about the images.
“Among other things, they would be the last line of defense against cruise missiles launched by the United States or others” against air bases that may soon go into operation on the islands, it said.
The images showed that the facilities were in place before Mr. Trump’s comments.
The Obama administration sought to play down both the images and the Chinese Defense Ministry’s response. 

“We watch Chinese naval developments very carefully, and we urge all parties in the South China Sea to avoid actions that raise tensions,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.
The images elicited a far more contentious response from Republicans, who do not necessarily share Mr. Trump’s views on China trade policy but see Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea as an aggressive challenge to the United States.

Johnson Reef
Weapons systems are visible on Chinese outposts in the South China Sea.

Satellite images by CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative/DigitalGlobe
Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the images confirmed “what has long been evident: China is militarizing the South China Sea, its leaders continue to lie about that fact, and Beijing is paying little to no price for its behavior.”
Some American military officials suggested privately that the antiaircraft emplacements were purely defensive in nature, with a limited range, useful only if the outposts were under attack.
Of greater concern, they said, was the possibility that China could one day install more advanced antiaircraft missile systems on the islands, which can fire at targets hundreds of miles away.
Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., head of the United States Pacific Command, said on Wednesday that America would not abandon its military presence across the Asia-Pacific region. 

He indicated that American naval ships would continue passing through the South China Sea to show that the United States “will not allow the shared domains to be closed down unilaterally, no matter how many bases are built on artificial features in the South China Sea.”
The Chinese government has said it respects freedom of civilian passage in the South China Sea but also called American naval “freedom of navigation operations” dangerous meddling. 

The Chinese navy has not tried to block the operations.
The latest images raised new doubts about the intent of comments made by Xi Jinping after he met Obama in the White House in September last year. 

With Obama at his side, Xi told reporters that “China does not intend to pursue militarization” of the islands.
Previous satellite pictures of the islands, released by the Asia Maritime Defense Initiative in August, already indicated that China was building military facilities there. 

Those images appeared to show reinforced aircraft hangars at the Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs, all part of the disputed parts of the archipelago.
A spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday that his government had been entitled to take such steps and said they did not count as “militarization.”
The spokesman, Geng Shuang, said he could not confirm the precise findings from the latest satellite images but disputed they indicated any change on China’s part.
“If China constructing normal facilities on its own islands and deploying necessary territorial defense facilities counts as ‘militarization,’” he said, “then what about sending fleets through the South China Sea?”