Why China Could Declare a South China Sea ADIZ Right About Now

By Harry J. Kazianis

The People’s Republic of China loves testing American Presidents. 

And, as the years have gone by, they’ve started doing it sooner and with more intensity.
Recent research seems to back up this assertion. 

As Andrew Erickson of the US Naval War College recently pointed out, Beijing undertook 44 “increasingly aggressive intercepts leading up to the EP-3 incident” back in 2001, only 77 days after George W. Bush entered the oval office. 

The crisis, according to Erickson, was “intended to test [Bush’s] intentions and persuade him to adopt a more conciliatory approach to China.”
Obama also had his own China test – this time a meager 44 days after his inauguration, in what is widely referred to as the USS Impeccable incident. 

According to Erickson, the move was designed as “part of a concerted Chinese effort to test [Obama’s] mettle and see if he could be pushed to reduce lawful US surveillance and reconnaissance operations in international waters and airspace.”
So what will Beijing do when it comes to Donald Trump? 

Let’s step back for a second and focus less on what China will do, but when it will do it— and that could be quite soon, as in now.
With Washington seriously distracted at home, the door is open for a number of actors (think not just China but Russia, Iran and/or North Korea) to make their move — and according to sources I have spoken with at the Pentagon, there is a real fear Beijing could make some sort of play fairly quickly.
I would argue that there could be no better time to test the Trump Administration from a Chinese perspective. 

In fact, there might not be a better time in the next several years to make a bold play in one of the strategically most important areas that Beijing considers its “core interest” and gain an important advantage over America. 

And these days, that likely means the South China Sea.
Consider where the United States is today, politically — a yuge, self-induced mess. 

Thanks to a number of what I would consider “unforced errors”, the new administration in Washington is constantly having to work through mini-crisis after mini-crisis. 

Whether it is the un-needed controversy over crowd sizes at the inauguration, near hourly “breaking news” over the latest Trump tweet and now a budding showdown over Trump’s executive action on refugees entering the country, foreign policy is not exactly front and center these days here in the nation’s capitol.
And from there things only get worse. 

There might not even be enough mid-level staffers, the backbone of many federal agencies, to respond to a crisis. 

When combined with the fact that many of the US State department’s most important positions are vacant, along with a rebooted National Security Council that just lost two of its most important members – none other than the heads of the Joint Chiefs and National Intelligence – there is what I could consider an obvious experience gap that is ripe for exploitation.
So, if China did decide to act swiftly, and specifically in the South China Sea, what would be its best play? 

My money is on an action that is bold, reinforces China’s claims of sovereignty and, most importantly, won’t be easy to retaliate against.
If I was Xi Jinping here is what I would do to test the new administration’s intentions and at the same time see Trump squirm: declare an Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ, in the South China Sea.
Now, on the surface, such a move seems highly escalatory, and not in line with other Chinese moves intended to test Bush or Obama. 

However, the stakes in Asia are greater than ever before, and with President Trump’s rhetoric on the South China Sea and Taiwan much bolder than that of any other new US administration just taking office, China might decide quickly it needs to see where the rubber meets the road — and fast. 

And there is no better way to do that than a South China Sea ADIZ.
How would Beijing make such a move? 

Easy, just dust off the playbook it used in 2013 when China did the same thing in the East China Sea.
Beijing may not be able to actually police either sea with great credibility if Washington or Tokyo really decided to press the matter, and in fact, to this day – according to senior officials in the Pentagon I have spoken with – it does not enforce its claims “with much vigor”. 

Nevertheless, four years ago it was able to set an important marker in the East China Sea opposite Japan. 

In the South China Sea Xi might not be able to enforce the zone through the whole breadth of the massive nine-dash-line area, but he could create a credible military deterrent by permanently basing HQ-9 air-defense platforms and advanced fighter jets on as many of China’s “fake islands” as possible to make the zone as real as possible in a short amount of time.
So how would President Trump respond? 

Likely just as Obama did: send advanced bombers to fly into the zone right after it is declared. 

Trump could even order a naval response, conducting multiple freedom of navigation operations to make the point clear that Washington won’t ever fully accept China’s aggressive actions.
However, when it comes to such an ADIZ, it won’t be just China, America, or US allies who have the final say on its success or failure. 

Airlines that fly in the new the zone won’t risk their passengers lives with non-compliance and a possible shoot-down if a plane is misidentified, so they will of course send their flight plans to Beijing, making such a zone a reality.
But all of this should be no shock. 

A Chinese ADIZ in the South China Sea has been something that has been discussed and theorized for years now. 

And there might not be a better time to try and make it a reality.

Sina Delenda Est

More Chinese missiles bound for disputed islands
By Lucas Tomlinson 

China has sent more surface-to-air missiles from the mainland to the South China Sea, and the U.S. intelligence community anticipates these new missiles will eventually go to some of China’s disputed territories for the first time, two U.S. officials tell Fox News.
The new missiles have been seen by American intelligence satellites on China’s provincial island province of Hainan. 

While Hainan is not part the disputed islands, officials say this location is “only temporary” and anticipate the missiles will be deployed soon to the contested Spratley Islands or Woody Island.
The two missile systems seen on Hainan island are known as the CSA-6b and HQ-9. 

The CSA-6b is a combined close-in missile system with a range of 10 miles and also contains anti-aircraft guns. 

The longer-range HQ-9 system has a range of 125 miles, and is roughly based on the Russian S-300 system.
This latest deployment of Chinese military equipment comes days after the Chinese returned an unclassified underwater research drone in the South China Sea. 

The Pentagon accused a Chinese Navy ship of stealing the drone, over the objections of the American crew operating it in international waters to collect oceanographic data.
The escalation comes weeks after President Donald Trump received a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s president breaking decades-long “one-China” protocol and angering Beijing.
China has deployed surface-to-air missiles to Woody Island in the South China Sea before, as Fox News first reported in February.
It has yet to deploy missiles to its seven man-made islands in the Spratly chain of islands. 

Weeks ago civilian satellite imagery obtained by a Washington, D.C., based think-tank showed gun emplacement on all the disputed islands, but not missiles.
Earlier this month, Fox News first reported China getting ready to deploy another missile defense system from a port in southeast China. 

China also flew a long-range bomber around the South China Sea for the first time since March 2015 and days after Mr. Trump’s phone call with his Taiwan counterpart.
Days before President Trump’s call, a pair of long-range H-6K bombers flew around the island of Taiwan for the first time.
Beijing has long expressed interest in fortifying its seven man-made islands in the South China Sea.
Last year, Xi Jinping pledged not to “militarize” the islands, in the Rose Garden at the White House.
“This another example of the adventurous and aggressiveness of the Chinese in the face of an anemic and feckless set of policies that we've seen over the last eigh years,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, former head of Air Force intelligence, in an interview with Fox News.
This month, U.S. intelligence satellites also spotted components for the Chinese version of the SA-21 surface-to-air missile system at the port of Jieyang, in southeast China, where officials say China has made similar military shipments in the past to its islands in the South China Sea.
The Chinese SA-21 system, based on the more advanced Russian S-400, is a more capable missile system than the HQ-9.

Chinese Aggressions

CHINA’S NEW SPRATLY ISLANDS DEFENSES
Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative

China appears to have built significant point-defense capabilities, in the form of large anti-aircraft guns and probable close-in weapons systems (CIWS), at each of its outposts in the Spratly Islands. AMTI began tracking the construction of identical, hexagon-shaped structures at Fiery Cross, Mischief, and Subi Reefs in June and July. 

It now seems that these structures are an evolution of point-defense fortifications already constructed at China’s smaller facilities on Gaven, Hughes, Johnson, and Cuarteron Reefs.

Gaven Reef






Hughes Reef





China has built nearly identical headquarters buildings at each of its four smaller artificial islands. The two smallest of the islets, Hughes and Gaven Reefs, feature four arms built off of these central structures. 

The end of each of these arms sports a hexagonal platform, approximately 30 feet wide. 

The northeastern and southwestern arms host what are most likely anti-aircraft guns (roughly 20 feet long when measured to the tip of the barrel). 

The other two platforms hold smaller (roughly 10-foot-wide) objects without clearly visible barrels. These cannot be definitively identified, but are likely CIWS to protect against cruise missile strikes, according to the Center for Naval Analyses’ Admiral Michael McDevitt (Ret.) and RAND’s Cortez Cooper in a new podcast.

Johnson Reef




China modified this blueprint for its facility on Johnson Reef. 

There the central facility has only two arms, with the southern one sporting the same anti-aircraft gun (which is covered by a tarp in recent imagery but was previously visible) and the northern one an apparent CIWS. 

Another gun and probable CIWS, along with a radar, were constructed on a separate structure, consisting of three hexagonal towers on the eastern side of the artificial island. 

This structure seems to be a less complex precursor to those built more recently at Fiery Cross, Mischief, and Subi Reefs.

Cuarteron Reef



At Cuarteron Reef, the last of the four smaller artificial islands completed, the point-defense systems have been completely separated from the central headquarters building. 

The northeastern and southwestern ends of the islet each host a structure identical to the one built at Johnson, including an anti-aircraft gun, probable CIWS, and radar.
This model has gone through another evolution at China’s much-larger bases on Fiery Cross, Subi, and Mischief Reefs. 

Each of these sports four structures, consisting of tiered hexagonal towers oriented toward the sea. They are positioned so that any anti-aircraft guns and CIWS installations placed on them would cover all approaches to the base with overlapping fields of fire. 

Earlier AMTI imagery of the construction of these buildings showed that each included six hexagonal structures in a ring around a central tower. 

Since then, three of the outer hexagons have been buried, while the others have been built in a tiered pattern, with those in the front (facing outward), built lower than those behind. 

All of the structures except one at Fiery Cross are also backed by an even taller tower consisting of several terraces. 

These towers likely contain targeting radar and other systems necessary for the operation of advanced point defenses. 

The structure at Fiery Cross lacking this tower is built alongside the base’s runway and may be connected to radar and communications systems at the airport.

Fiery Cross Reef





Construction of all four structures has been completed at Fiery Cross Reef, where covers have been placed over the point defenses installed on the central hexagonal tower and the two in front of it. 

But the size of the platforms (which matches those at the four smaller artificial islands) and covers suggests they boast systems similar to those at Gaven, Hughes, Johnson, and Cuarteron Reefs.

Mischief Reef





At Mischief Reef, two of the four structures have been completed, with covers already placed over the systems installed there. 

Two others are still being finished, with disturbed soil showing where the three buried chambers were placed. 

One of those has covers over the front two platforms, while the other has space for a system that has not been installed yet. 

All three platforms at the fourth structure are empty, but it is clear from the spaces left empty on the platforms that the systems to be installed on the front two will be smaller than the one placed on the central platform. 

This is consistent with the pattern of larger anti-aircraft guns and probable CIWS seen on the smaller islets.

Subi Reef





At Subi Reef, only one of the four structures seems to have its point defenses already installed, while the others sport empty spaces waiting for guns.
These gun and probable CIWS emplacements show that Beijing is serious about defense of its artificial islands in case of an armed contingency in the South China Sea. 

Among other things, they would be the last line of defense against cruise missiles launched by the United States or others against these soon-to-be-operational air bases. 

They would back up the defensive umbrella provided by a future deployment to the Spratlys of mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) platforms, such as the HQ-9 deployed to Woody Island in the Paracel Islands. 

Such a deployment could happen at any time, and Fox News has reported that components for SAM systems have been spotted at the southeastern Chinese port of Jieyang, possibly destined for the South China Sea.