The Necessary War

South China Sea: Chinese fighter jets deployed to contested island
By Brad Lendon

ImageSat International (ISI).

Hong Kong -- A satellite image obtained by CNN shows China has deployed at least four J-10 fighter jets to the contested Woody Island in the South China Sea, the first known deployment of fighter jets there since 2017.
The image was taken Wednesday and represents the first time J-10s have been seen on Woody or any Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea, according to ImageSat International, which supplied the image to CNN.
The deployment comes as tensions remain high in the South China Sea and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping prepares to meet Donald Trump at the G-20 summit in Japan next week.


Analysts who looked at the satellite photo for CNN said both the placement of the planes out in the open and accompanying equipment is significant and indicates the fighter jets were on the contested island for up to 10 days.
"They want you to notice them. Otherwise they would be parked in the hangars," said Peter Layton, a former Royal Australian Air Force officer and fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. 

"What message do they want you to take from them?"
Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, said the deployment is designed to "demonstrate it is their territory and they can put military aircraft there whenever they want."
"It also makes a statement that they can extend their air power reach over the South China Sea as required or desired," Schuster said.
The J-10 jets have a combat range of about 500 miles (740 kilometers), putting much of the South China Sea and vital shipping lands within reach, Schuster said.
The four planes are not carrying external fuel tanks, the analysts said. 

That suggests they were to be refueled on the island, so the plan may be to keep them there awhile.

Chinese J-10 fighters fly at Airshow China in Zhuhai in 2010.

"It could be an early training deployment as part of getting the J-10 squadron operationally ready for an ADIZ (air defense identification zone) declaration," Layton said. 

"This activity may be the new normal."
China said in 2016 it reserved the right to impose an ADIZ over the South China Sea, which would require aircraft flying over the waters to first notify Beijing. 

It set up an ADIZ over the East China Sea in 2013, prompting an outcry from Japan and the United States, but the zone has not been fully enforced.
Woody Island (đảo Phú Lâm) is the largest of the Paracel chain, also known as the Hoàng Sa.
The Paracels (Hoàng Sa) sit in the north-central portion of the 1.3 million-square-mile South China Sea. 

They are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, but have been occupied by China since 1974, when Chinese troops ousted a South Vietnamese garrison.
The past several years have seen Beijing substantially upgrade its facilities on the islands, deploying surface-to-air missiles, building 20 hangars at the airfield, upgrading two harbors and performing substantial land reclamation, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
Woody Island has served as a blueprint for Beijing's more prominent island-building efforts in the Spratly chain to the south, AMTI said in a 2017 report.
The appearance of the J-10s on Woody Island comes just over a year after China sent its H-6K long-range bombers to the island for test flights for the first time.
The PLA claimed that mission was a part of China's aim to achieve a broader regional reach, quicker mobilization, and greater strike capabilities.
A military expert, Wang Mingliang, was quoted in a Chinese statement as saying the training would hone the Chinese air force's war-preparation skills and its ability to respond to various security threats in the region.
In 2017, a report in China's state-run Global Times, said fighter jets -- J-11s -- were deployed to Woody Island for the first time, with the new hangars able to protect the warplanes from the island's high heat and humidity.
That report said such hangars would be useful on other Chinese islands to greatly enhance Beijing's control over the South China Sea.

China Threat

Taiwan asks US for new fighter jets to defend against China

AFP

Taiwan air force pilots stand next to French-made Mirage fighter jets during an annual exercise at the Hsinchu base in January. 

TAIPEI -- Taiwan has made a formal request to the United States for new fighter jets to defend itself against increasing Chinese threats, Deputy Defence Minister Shen Yi-ming told reporters on Thursday (Mar 7).
"We made the request to purchase (fighter jets) because China has been increasing its military strength and we are starting to have an imbalance of power in our air defence capabilities," Shen added.
The request, if granted, could ramp up tensions between China and the United States.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting unification, even though the two sides have been ruled separately since the end of a civil war in 1949.
China has significantly stepped up diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan since the Beijing-sceptic President Tsai Ing-wen took office in 2016, including staging a series of military exercises near the island.
Chinese bombers and surveillance aircraft have also begun flying much more regular sorties around the island.
Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, but has remained Taiwan's most powerful unofficial ally and biggest arms supplier.
Last year, the US irked China over its plans to sell a batch of military parts to Taiwan in a US$330 million contract including standard spare parts for aircraft.
Beijing has been incensed by warming ties between Washington and Taipei, including the approval by the US State Department of a preliminary licence to sell submarine technology to the island.
But fearing a possible backlash from Beijing, the US has repeatedly denied Taiwan's requests since 2002 for new fighter jets including newer F-16s and F-35s.
In that time China has massively ramped up spending on its armed forces, including highly advanced fifth-generation jet fighters.
That has left Taiwan with an ageing airforce that analysts say is in desperate need of an upgrade.
The island currently has 326 fighter jets, all in service since the 1990s, including US-made F-16s, French Mirage 2000s and Taiwan's own indigenous fighters (IDF).
Defence officials would not confirm how many fighter jets they have asked for in the purchase request, or what model.
Local media Apple Daily reported Taiwan was seeking 66 F-16V at a cost of US$13 billion including missiles, logistics and training.
"It does not matter if it is F-15, F-18, F-16 or F-35, as long as it fits our combat needs," Tang Hung-an, a major-general with Taiwan's Air Force Command Headquarters said.
Tang added that the letter of request to the US did not specify which type of aircraft Taiwan wants.

China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Plan in Pakistan Takes a Military Turn

Under a program China insisted was peaceful, Pakistan is cooperating on distinctly defense-related projects, including a secret plan to build new fighter jets.
By Maria Abi-Habib

A Chinese rocket boosting two Pakistani satellites into orbit from Jiuquan, China, in July.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When President Trump started the new year by suspending billions of dollars of security aid to Pakistan, one theory was that it would scare the Pakistani military into cooperating better with its American allies.
The reality was that Pakistan already had a replacement sponsor lined up.
Just two weeks later, the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials were putting the final touches on a secret proposal to expand Pakistan’s building of Chinese military jets, weaponry and other hardware. The confidential plan, reviewed by The New York Times, would also deepen the cooperation between China and Pakistan in space, a frontier the Pentagon recently said Beijing was trying to militarize after decades of playing catch-up.
All those military projects were designated as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a $1 trillion chain of infrastructure development programs stretching across some 70 countries, built and financed by Beijing.
Chinese officials have repeatedly said the Belt and Road is purely an economic project with peaceful intent. 

But with its plan for Pakistan, China is for the first time explicitly tying a Belt and Road proposal to its military ambitions — and confirming the concerns of a host of nations who suspect the infrastructure initiative is really about helping China project armed might.
As China’s strategically located and nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan has been the leading example of how the Chinese projects are being used to give Beijing both favor and leverage among its clients.
Since the beginning of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, Pakistan has been the program’s flagship site, with some $62 billion in projects planned in the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. 

In the process, China has lent more and more money to Pakistan at a time of economic desperation there, binding the two countries ever closer.
For the most part, Pakistan has eagerly turned more toward China as the chill with the United States has deepened. 

Some Pakistani officials are growing concerned about losing sovereignty to their deep-pocketed Asian ally, but the host of ways the two countries are now bound together may leave Pakistan with little choice but to go along.
Even before the revelation of the new Chinese-Pakistani military cooperation, some of China’s biggest projects in Pakistan had clear strategic implications.
A Chinese-built seaport and special economic zone in the Pakistani town of Gwadar is rooted in trade, giving China a quicker route to get goods to the Arabian Sea. 

But it also gives Beijing a strategic card to play against India and the United States if tensions worsen to the point of naval blockades as the two powers increasingly confront each other at sea.
A less scrutinized component of Belt and Road is the central role Pakistan plays in China’s Beidou satellite navigation system. 

Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to the system’s military service, allowing more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft.
The cooperation is meant to be a blueprint for Beidou’s expansion to other Belt and Road nations, however, ostensibly ending its clients’ reliance on the American military-run GPS network that Chinese officials fear is monitored and manipulated by the United States.
In Pakistan, China has found an amenable ally with much to recommend it: shared borders and a long history of cooperation; a hedge in South Asia against India; a large market for arms sales and trade with potential for growth; a wealth of natural resources.
Now, China is also finding a better showcase for its security and surveillance technology in a place once defined by its close military relationship with the United States.
“The focus of Belt and Road is on roads and bridges and ports, because those are the concrete construction projects that people can easily see. But it’s the technologies of the future and technologies of future security systems that could be the biggest security threat in the Belt and Road project,” said Priscilla Moriuchi, the director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, a cyberthreat intelligence monitoring company based in Massachusetts.

The Chinese-built and operated port in Gwadar, Pakistan.

An Asset on the Sea
The tightening China-Pakistan security alliance has gained momentum on a long road to the Arabian Sea.
In 2015, under Belt and Road, China took a nascent port in the Pakistani coastal town of Gwadar and supercharged the project with an estimated $800 million development plan that included a large special economic zone for Chinese companies.
Linking the port to western China would be a new 2,000-mile network of highways and rails through the most forbidding stretch of Pakistan: Baluchistan Province, a resource-rich region plagued by militancy.
The public vision for the project was that it would allow Chinese goods to bypass much longer and more expensive shipping routes through the Indian Ocean and avoid the territorial waters of several American allies in Asia.
From the beginning, though, key details of the project were kept from the public and lawmakers, officials say, including the terms of its loan structure and the length of the lease, more than 40 years, that a Chinese state-owned company secured to operate the port.
If there was concern within Pakistan about the hidden costs of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, also known as CPEC, there was growing suspicion abroad about a hidden military aspect, as well.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, center left, praying during the formal opening of Gwadar port in 2016.

In recent years, Chinese state-owned companies have built or begun constructing seaports at strategic spots around the Indian Ocean, including places in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Malaysia.
Chinese officials insisted that the ports would not be militarized. 

But analysts began wondering whether China’s endgame was to muscle its way onto coastal territories that could become prime military assets — much as it did when it started militarizing contested islands in the South China Sea.
Then, Sri Lanka, unable to repay its ballooning debt with China, handed over the Chinese-built port at Hambantota in a 99-year lease agreement last year. 

Indian and American officials expressed a growing conviction that taking control of the port had been China’s intent all along.
In October, Vice President Mike Pence said Sri Lanka was a warning for all Belt and Road countries that China was luring them into debt traps.
“China uses so-called debt diplomacy to expand its influence,” Mr. Pence said in a speech.
“Just ask Sri Lanka, which took on massive debt to let Chinese state companies build a port of questionable commercial value,” Mr. Pence added. 

“It may soon become a forward military base for China’s growing blue-water navy.”
Military analysts predict that China could use Gwadar to expand the naval footprint of its attack submarines, after agreeing in 2015 to sell eight submarines to Pakistan in a deal worth up to $6 billion. 

China could use the equipment it sells to the South Asian country to refuel its own submarines, extending its navy’s global reach.

The Sahiwal coal power plant in Pakistan’s Punjab Province was one of the first and biggest projects financed and completed under the Belt and Road Initiative. Pakistan has fallen behind on payments just to operate the plant.

Deepening Debt
When China inaugurated Belt and Road, in 2013, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s new government in Pakistan saw it as the answer for a host of problems.
Foreign investment in Pakistan was scant, driven away by terrorist attacks and the country’s enduring reputation for corruption. 

And Pakistan desperately needed a modern power grid to help ease persistent electricity shortages.
Pakistani officials say that Beijing first proposed the highway from China’s East Turkestan colony through Pakistan that connected to Gwadar port. 

But Pakistani officials insisted that new coal power plants be built. 

China agreed.
With CPEC under fresh scrutiny, Chinese and Pakistani officials in recent weeks have contended that Pakistan has a debt problem, but not a Chinese debt problem. 

In October, the country’s central bank revealed an overall debt and liability burden of about $215 billion, with $95 billion externally held. 

With nearly half of CPEC’s projects completed — in terms of worth — Pakistan currently owes China $23 billion.
But the country stands to owe $62 billion to China — before interest balloons the figure to some $90 billion — under the plan for Belt and Road’s expansion there in coming years.
Pakistan’s central bank governor, Ashraf Wathra, said publicly in 2015 that he had no clarity on Chinese investments in Pakistan and was concerned about rising debt levels. 

It still took him months after that to secure a briefing from cabinet officials.

Years after contracting to have China build new power plants, Pakistan still has a problem with severe electricity shortfalls.

“My main question was, ‘Do we have any feasibility studies of these projects and a cost-benefit analysis?’ Their answers were all evasive,” recalled Mr. Wathra, who has since retired.
Ahsan Iqbal, a cabinet minister and the main architect for CPEC in the previous government, said the project was well thought-through and dismissed Mr. Wathra’s account.
“No one wanted to invest here — the Chinese took a chance,” Mr. Iqbal said in an interview.
But the bill is coming due. 

Pakistan’s first debt repayments to China are set for next year, starting at about $300 million and gradually increasing to reach about $3.2 billion by 2026, according to officials. 

And Pakistan is already having trouble paying what it owes to Chinese companies.

Pakistan already builds Chinese-designed JF-17 fighter jets, like this one. Under a secret proposal, Pakistan would also cooperate with China to build a new generation of fighters.

Fighter Jets and Satellites
According to the undisclosed proposal drawn up by the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials at the start of the year, a special economic zone under CPEC would be created in Pakistan to produce a new generation of fighter jets. 

For the first time, navigation systems, radar systems and onboard weapons would be built jointly by the countries at factories in Pakistan.
The proposal, confirmed by officials at the Ministry of Planning and Development, would expand China and Pakistan’s current cooperation on the JF-17 fighter jet, which is assembled at Pakistan’s military-run Kamra Aeronautical Complex in Punjab Province. 

The Chinese-designed jets have given Pakistan an alternative to the American-built F-16 fighters that have become more difficult to obtain as Islamabad’s relationship with Washington frays.
The plans are in the final stages of approval, but the current government is expected to rubber stamp the project, officials in Islamabad say.
For China, Pakistan could become a showcase for other countries seeking to shift their militaries away from American equipment and toward Chinese arms, Western diplomats said. 

And because China is not averse to selling such advanced weaponry as ballistic missiles — which the United States will not sell to allies like Saudi Arabia — the deal with Pakistan could be a steppingstone to a bigger market for Chinese weapons in the Muslim world.
For years, some of the most important military coordination between China and Pakistan has been going on in space.
Just months before Beijing unveiled the Belt and Road project in 2013, it signed an agreement with Pakistan to build a network of satellite stations inside the South Asian country to establish the Beidou Navigation System as an alternative to the American GPS network.
Beidou quickly became a core component of Belt and Road, with the Chinese government calling the satellite network part of an “information Silk Road” in a 2015 white paper.

A model of China’s Beidou navigation satellite network, shown during the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai in November.

Like GPS, Beidou has a civilian function and a military one. 

If its trial with Pakistan goes well, Beijing could offer Beidou’s military service to other countries, creating a bloc of nations whose military actions would be more difficult for the United States to monitor.
By 2020, all 35 satellites for the system will be launched in collaboration with other Belt and Road countries, completing Beidou.
“Beidou, whatever any users use it for — whether it’s a civilian navigating their way to the grocery store or a government using it to coordinate their rocket launches — those are all things that China can track,” said Ms. Moriuchi, of the research group Recorded Future. 

“And that’s what is most striking: that this authoritarian government will be a major technology provider for numerous countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.”
For the Pentagon, China’s satellite launches are ominous.
China’s military “continues to strengthen its military space capabilities despite its public stance against the militarization of space,” including developing Beidou and new weaponry, according to a Pentagon report issued to Congress in May.
In October, Pakistan’s information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, said that by 2022, Pakistan would send its own astronaut into space with China’s help.
“We are close to China, and we are getting more close,” he said in a later interview. 

“It’s time for the West to wake up and recognize our importance.”

The Pakistani military has been a vital supporter, and securer, of China’s projects in Pakistan.

Wooing Pakistan’s Military
Though the relationship between China and Pakistan has clearly grown closer, it has not been without tension. 

CPEC could still be vulnerable to political shifts in Pakistan — as happened this year in Malaysia, which shelved three big projects by Chinese companies.
Campaigning during the parliamentary elections that made him prime minister in July, Imran Khan vowed to review CPEC projects and renegotiate them if he won. 

In September, after meeting in Saudi Arabia with the crown prince, Mr. Khan said that the kingdom had agreed to invest in CPEC too.
Pakistan’s new commerce minister then proposed pausing all CPEC projects while the government assessed them.
The moves by Pakistan’s new government angered Beijing, which was concerned they could set back Belt and Road globally.
But in Pakistan, China has a steady ally it can approach to smooth things over: the country’s powerful military establishment, which stands to fill its coffers with millions of dollars through CPEC as the military’s construction companies win infrastructure bids.
Shortly after the commerce minister’s comments, the Pakistani Army’s top commander, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, hurried to Beijing for an unannounced visit with Xi Jinping. 

The meeting came six weeks before Mr. Khan made his first official visit with the Chinese president, a trip he had listed as a priority.
Statements from the military said Bajwa and Xi spoke extensively about Belt and Road projects.
Bajwa “said that the Belt and Road initiative with CPEC as its flagship is destined to succeed despite all odds, and Pakistan’s army shall ensure security of CPEC at all costs,” read a statement from the Pakistani military.
Shortly after the Beijing meeting, Pakistan’s government rolled back its invitation to Saudi Arabia to join CPEC and all talk of pausing or canceling Chinese projects has stopped.

Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan went to meet Xi Jinping in China in November with high hopes for an economic deal. But few details have been announced.

But China could face another challenge to its investments: a Pakistani financial crisis that has forced Mr. Khan’s government to seek loans from international lenders that require transparency.
Throughout September, international delegations traveled to Islamabad carrying the same message: Reveal the extent of Chinese loans if you want financial assistance.
In a late September meeting with visiting officials from the International Monetary Fund, Pakistan’s government asked for a bailout of up to $12 billion. 

The fund’s representatives pressed Pakistan to share all existing agreements with the Chinese government and demanded I.M.F. input during any future CPEC negotiations — a previously undisclosed facet of the negotiations, according to communications seen by the Fund and a Pakistani official. 

The fund also sought assurances that Pakistan would not use a bailout to repay CPEC loans.
But the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad stepped up its engagement as well, demanding that CPEC deals be kept secret and promising to shore up Pakistan’s finances with bilateral loans, Pakistani officials say.
Three months after taking office, Khan still has not made good on his campaign promises to reveal the nature of the $62 billion investment Beijing has committed to Pakistan, and his government has backtracked on an I.M.F. deal.
In early November, Khan visited Xi in Beijing, a trip during which he was expected to clinch bilateral loans and grants to ease Pakistan’s financial crisis.
Instead, his government walked away with vague promises of a deal “in principle,” but refused to disclose any details.

A Chinese national flag, center at the Sahiwal coal power plant in Pakistan, which cost about $1.9 billion to build. Pakistan now owes around $119 million in back payments to Chinese companies just for operating the plant.

Axis of Evil

U.S. sanctions China for buying Russian fighter jets, missiles

By Lesley Wroughton, Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Chinese military on Thursday for buying fighter jets and missile systems from Russia, in breach of a sweeping U.S. sanctions law punishing Moscow for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
In Beijing, the Chinese government expressed anger and demanded the sanctions be withdrawn.
The U.S. State Department said it would immediately impose sanctions on China’s Equipment Development Department (EDD), the military branch responsible for weapons and equipment, and its director, Li Shangfu, for engaging in “significant transactions” with Rosoboronexport, Russia’s main arms exporter.
The sanctions are related to China’s purchase of 10 SU-35 combat aircraft in 2017 and S-400 surface-to-air missile system-related equipment in 2018, the State Department said.
They block the Chinese agency, and Li, from applying for export licenses and participating in the U.S. financial system.
It also adds them to the Treasury Department’s list of specially designated individuals with whom Americans are barred from doing business.
The U.S. also blacklisted another 33 people and entities associated with the Russian military and intelligence, adding them to a list under the 2017 law, known as the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA.
CAATSA also seeks to punish Russia for its aggression in Ukraine and involvement in Syria’s civil war.
Doing significant business with anyone on the U.S. blacklist can trigger sanctions like those imposed on China.
Some of those added to the list, which now contains 72 names, were indicted in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, a U.S. official said.
President Donald Trump on Thursday issued an executive order intended to facilitate implementation of the sanctions.
A federal special counsel is leading a criminal investigation of Russian interference in the U.S. election, and any possible cooperation with Trump’s presidential campaign.
Trump has insisted there was no collusion with Russia. 

Sukhoi Su-35 multi-role fighters of the Sokoly Rossii (Falcons of Russia) aerobatic team fly in formation during a demonstration flight at the MAKS 2017 air show in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, Russia, July 21, 2017. 

One U.S. administration official said the sanctions imposed on the Chinese agency were aimed at Moscow, not Beijing or its military, despite an escalating trade war between the United States and China.
“The ultimate target of these sanctions is Russia. CAATSA sanctions in this context are not intended to undermine the defense capabilities of any particular country,” the official told reporters on a conference call.
“They are instead aimed at imposing costs upon Russia in response to its malign activities,” the official said.
In Moscow, Russian member of parliament Franz Klintsevich said the sanctions would not affect the S-400 and SU-35 deals.
“I am sure that these contracts will be executed in line with the schedule,” Klintsevich was quoted as saying by Russia’s Interfax news agency. 

“The possession of this military equipment is very important for China.”
Security analysts in Asia said the move was largely symbolic.
“The imposition of U.S. sanctions will have zero impact on Russian arms sales to China,” said Ian Storey, of Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute, adding that Moscow needed Chinese money and Beijing wanted advanced military technology.
Collin Koh, a security analyst at Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the sanctions would do little to counter the evolving research and development relationship between China and Russia.
China relies less on large big-ticket purchases from Russia, but Chinese defense industries are seeking expertise from Russia and former-Soviet states to plug knowledge gaps, he said.
The Trump administration is pursuing strategies to clamp down on China and faces growing pressure to respond strongly to U.S. intelligence agency reports that Russia is continuing to meddle in U.S. politics.

Russian servicemen drive S-400 missile air defence systems during the Victory Day parade, marking the 73rd anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, at Red Square in Moscow, Russia May 9, 2018.

Members of Congress, including many of Trump’s fellow Republicans, who passed the sanctions bill nearly unanimously, have repeatedly called on the administration to take a harder line against Moscow.
Administration officials said they hoped the action against EDD would send a message to others considering buying the S-400.
U.S. officials have been discussing the issue particularly with NATO ally Turkey, which wants to buy the Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries.
Washington has expressed concern that Turkey’s planned deployment of the S-400s could pose a risk to the security of some U.S.-made weapons and other technology used by Turkey, including the F-35 fighter jet.
U.S. officials have warned that Turkey’s purchase of the system could contravene CAATSA.
“We hope that at least this step will send a signal of our seriousness and perhaps encourage others to think twice about their own engagement with the Russian defense and intelligence sectors,” another U.S. official said.

China Lake: One of China’s Reef Constructions Can Hold 24 Combat Aircraft

China has completed the construction of a variety of military assets in the Vietnamese East Sea, assets that allow it to deploy fighter jets and missile launchers at a moment’s notice and provide it expanded surveillance capabilities.
by FRANCES MARTEL

Fiery Cross Reef, South China Sea
The images show completed “naval, air, radar, and defensive facilities” in the Spratly Island chain, particularly on three reefs China has invested in turning into artificial islands capable of holding combat aircraft and surveillance technology, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The three most developed locations, according to the CSIS report, are Subi, Mischief, and Fiery Cross Reefs in the Spratly Islands. 

“Beijing can now deploy military assets, including combat aircraft and mobile missile launchers, to the Spratly Islands at any time,” the report notes. 

Among the most notable developments since the last such report is the completion of hangar construction on Fiery Cross Reef, which allows China to “accommodate 24 combat aircraft and four larger planes (such as ISR, transport, refueling, or bomber aircraft).”
The CSIS publishes such satellite images and reports periodically. 

In February, it warned that Woody Island, the largest of the Paracel Islands, was home to “an airstrip, hangars, and a deployment of HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries,” as well as the beginnings of seven new harbors.
China claims most of the South China Sea in a region within what China calls the “nine-dash line,” a drawing Chinese officials argue proves their ownership of the region. 

Both the Paracel and Spratly Island chains, as well as other notable formations like the Benham Rise and Scarborough Shoal, fall within China’s “nine-dash line” border.
This border violates the territorial integrity of Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, and Malaysia. 

Last year, the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague ruled that China’s claims were unfounded and it must cease its constructions in the region immediately. 

China responded by calling the ruling a joint U.S.-Japanese conspiracy and refusing to abide by it.

Responding to the CSIS report on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying repeated the false claims to the South China Sea the Hague debunked last year. 

“China has stated many times that the Spratly Islands are its inherent territory,” she said.
A week ago, Li Keqiang insisted that China’s use of the region was not an attempt at colonization. “China’s facilities, Chinese islands and reefs, are primarily for civilian purposes and, even if there is a certain amount of defense equipment or facilities, it is for maintaining the freedom of navigation,” he said, responding to concerns of expansionism.
The Philippines, which arguably has the most territory to lose between the Spratly Islands and the Scarborough Shoal, has taken a demure approach to addressing the situation since President Rodrigo Duterte took office in June 2016. 

“There’s nothing we can do,” he said. 

“What do you want me to do? Declare war against China?” Duterte asked in frustration this week, responding to critics that he has responded to China’s growing presence in the region too slowly.
Duterte has also chastised the United States for not doing enough to keep China from developing assets in the Philippine territory, contradicting his own demands to see the United States reduce its military presence in the Philippines.
The Philippine Inquirer lamented Duterte’s attitude, calling it “disheartening” and a “puzzling display of defeatism” in an opinion piece this week.
Duterte’s government nonetheless appears to have accepted the delivery of two Japanese surveillance aircraft on Tuesday, meant to patrol the South China Sea. 

According to the Agence-France Presse, the two are part of a five-part package of Beechcraft TC-90 planes, which Japanese officials deemed a responsible move to curbing China’s expansion in the region. 

Duterte has also called for the construction of “structures” in Philippine territory in the South China Sea, though Manila has not clarified what the president meant by this.