FONOPs

Two U.S. warships sail in disputed South China Sea

By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military said two of its warships sailed near islands claimed by China in the South China Sea on Monday, a move that angered Beijing at a time of tense ties between the world’s two biggest economies.
The busy waterway is one of a growing number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which also include a trade war, U.S. sanctions and Taiwan.
President Donald Trump dramatically increased pressure on China to reach a trade deal by threatening to hike U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods this week and soon target hundreds of billions more.
The U.S. guided-missile destroyers Preble and Chung Hoon traveled within 12 nautical miles of Gaven and Johnson Reefs in the Spratly Islands, a U.S. military spokesman told Reuters.
Commander Clay Doss, a spokesman for the Seventh Fleet, said the “innocent passage” aimed “to challenge excessive maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways as governed by international law”.
The operation was first reported by Reuters.

The U.S. military has a long-standing position that its operations are carried out throughout the world, including areas claimed by allies, and that they are separate from political considerations.
The operation was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing’s efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, where Chinese, Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies operate.
China claims almost all of the strategic South China Sea and frequently lambasts the United States and its allies over naval operations near Chinese-occupied islands.
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have competing claims in the region.
China and the United States have repeatedly traded barbs in the past over what Washington says is Beijing’s militarization of the South China Sea by building military installations on artificial islands and reefs.
China defends its construction as necessary for self-defense and says the United States is responsible for ratcheting up tension in the region by sending warships and military planes close to islands Beijing claims.
The freedom of navigation operation comes weeks after a major naval parade marking 70 years since the founding of the Chinese navy. 

The United States sent only a low-level delegation to the Chinese navy anniversary events.

Chinese Aggressions

US warship sails by contested island chain in South China Sea in message to Beijing
By Lucas Tomlinson

A U.S. warship sailed Sunday near two contested Chinese man-made islands in the South China Sea, the location where Beijing has built up military fortifications despite a pledge not to do so, a U.S. defense official told Fox News.
The “guided-missile destroyer USS Decatur (DDG 73) conducted a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea to uphold the rights and freedoms of all states under international law. Decatur sailed within 12 nautical miles of Gaven and Johnson Reefs in the Spratly Islands,” the U.S. official, who declined to be identified, said in a statement.
It’s not immediately clear how Beijing will respond. 

Normally, American warships have been shadowed by Chinese spy ships during similar operations in the past in addition to fighter jets.
The latest military operation -- which the Pentagon calls “routine” freedom of navigation maneuvers -- comes days after a series of actions between global powers.
The U.S. military last sailed a warship within 12 nautical miles of a contested Chinese island in May, the internationally recognized territorial boundary. 

By sailing a warship inside that boundary, the U.S. rejects the claim, a view shared by most of the international community. 

The news of the action was also reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. military last sailed a warship within 12 nautical miles of a contested Chinese island in May, the internationally recognized territorial boundary. 

The transit by the American destroyer Sunday follows a series of diplomatic standoffs between world powers.
Last week, China announced it would not allow a large U.S. warship to visit Hong Kong next month. On Wednesday, the U.S. Air Force flew nuclear-capable bombers near China in the East China Sea, which Beijing called “provocative” despite flying in international airspace. 

China also yanked its top admiral from Newport, R.I., last week days before he was set to meet his American counterpart.
Recent tensions come as the Trump administration has slapped additional sanctions on $200 billion in Chinese goods in recent days and taken the additional steps to sanction China over its purchase of Russian fighter jets and advanced surface-to-air missiles.
Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis played down the recent disputes with China.
“It's international waters, folks. It's international waters,” Mattis said about the B-52 bomber flight and other recent “freedom of navigation operations” by other U.S. warships.

“If it was 20 years ago and they had not militarized those features there, it would've just been another bomber on its way to Diego Garcia or whatever, Mattis added. 

 “There's nothing out of the ordinary about it.”
In the Rose Garden outside the White House in 2015, Chinese dictator Xi Jinping pledged his country would not militarize the man-made islands Beijing had built atop former reefs. 

Since then, China has deployed surface-to-air missiles to some of the islands, a move which U.S. officials concede could one day affect U.S. military flight plans.
At the United Nations last week, President Trump accused China of meddling in the upcoming midterm elections in November.
“They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade. We are winning on trade. We are winning at every level,” Trump said at a U.N. Security Council meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi seated nearby.

China's new unnamed home-built aircraft carrier leaves Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning Province for sea trials Sunday, May 13, 2018. 

In his annual address to the U.N. General Assembly, President Trump said China's trade policies "cannot be tolerated" anymore.
“We have racked up $13 trillion in trade deficits over the last two decades, but those days are over. We will no longer tolerate such abuse, we will not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated and our wealth to be plundered and transferred.”
Two years ago, the U.S. military accused their Chinese counterparts of stealing two American underwater drones in the South China Sea as the U.S. Navy operated them from a short distance away. 

The Chinese returned the drones weeks later in boxes.

China's Historical Mythomania

Howard W. French's Everything Under the Heavens, reviewed: The last empire

By DAVID MULRONEY

Title Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shapes China’s Push for Global Power
Author Howard W. French
Genre Non-Fiction
Publisher Knopf
Pages 330
Price $36.95

Donald Trump isn’t the only global leader with wall-building ambitions. 

Xi Jinping recently called on his officials to encircle restive Xinjiang province, home to China’s Muslim Uyghur population, with a “Great Wall of steel.”
Trump’s Great Wall can be dismissed as an opportunistic policy gambit, but Xi’s wall-building impulse has deeper roots. 

The default symbol for the United States is the Statue of Liberty, which famously welcomes the huddled masses. 

China’s most notable structure, the Great Wall, was built to keep the masses out, particularly those with dynastic ambitions.
For China’s mandarins, trouble typically arrives in the form of the twin calamities captured in the gloomy couplet, “Nei luan, wai huan”: chaos at home and invasion from abroad.
Avoiding these linked perils remains a priority for Xi, a preoccupation that shapes his foreign and domestic policy. 

Xi presides over the world’s last surviving empire, a country that has devoured ethnic rivals such as the Uyghurs and Tibetans whole, and that treats neighbouring states as vassals to be kept in line. 

All non-Han “Others” are expected to understand and appreciate the concept of tian xia, or “everything under heaven,” the rather ambitious zone of influence that China has traditionally attributed to itself.
Living up to this imposing mandate means that China is forever managing others, walling them in or fending them off, hoping to pacify them with the offer of membership in a China-dominated order.
In his new book, appropriately titled Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Shapes China’s Push for Global Power, former New York Times journalist Howard W. French makes it clear China’s sense of national superiority is of more than historical significance. 

While China’s power has waxed and waned, its sense of being the Middle Kingdom has remained constant. 

So, too, has its inclination to manage those who lie outside the centre. 

Living up to its awesome self-image has required China to dispatch fleets and armies, and to develop a highly sophisticated diplomatic stagecraft of flattery and intimidation. 

For centuries, exercising this mandate of heaven has meant relentless efforts to manage and cajole, to pacify and control.
Nothing is quite what it seems. 

The generous offer of inclusion in a Chinese world masks a condescending disregard for partially sinicized neighbours, such as the Vietnamese and Tibetans, and contempt for the barbarians beyond. 

The offer of a peaceful place in a Chinese world is inevitably backed up by the sword.
French’s account, not surprisingly, runs counter to the official Chinese narrative. 

Admiral Zheng He, a Muslim eunuch who led a Chinese armada to Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and the east coast of Africa, is lauded in China as an unconventional explorer. 

Unlike his Western counterparts, whose voyages were marked by greed, violence and conquest, Zheng, the story goes, was an ambassador of Chinese benevolence. 

The reality, as French reminds us, is that Zheng’s massive ships were actually troop carriers, whose menacing arrival conveyed a distinctly different message about the nature of the Chinese deal on offer.
Modern China continues to proclaim this theme of "benevolent" internationalism, something French challenges with numerous examples. 

The most chilling is his account of the Chinese navy’s 1988 massacre of flag-waving Vietnamese troops on the disputed Johnson Reef in the South China Sea. 

The Vietnamese protest is captured on a grainy YouTube video that is suddenly interrupted by Chinese naval gunfire. 

When the smoke clears, the Vietnamese are, shockingly, gone. 

It’s worth noting this happened just a year before the Chinese military perpetrated another massacre, this time of student protesters in Tiananmen Square. 

Nei luan, wai huan.
China is clearly in the midst of a new period of exuberance and expansion, and, as French makes clear, this inevitably involves friction with the two powers, Japan and the United States, that have come to dominate its neighbourhood over the past 200 years.
In recent decades, Japan, seduced by the lure of the China market and by the friendly pragmatism of previous (and needier) Chinese leaders, played down territorial disputes as it helped to rebuild China. The tables have since turned. 

All things Japanese are now demonized by China, which evokes past Japanese aggression as it steadily encroaches on the rocky outcroppings that mark the beginning of the Japanese archipelago.
Even more worrisome is China’s growing rivalry with its most formidable adversary, the United States. 

China is rapidly acquiring the weapons and technology to make it highly risky for the U.S. Navy to operate in the western Pacific, an ambition furthered by China’s construction of military airstrips on artificial islands in the South China Sea. 

French ominously quotes another Chinese aphorism: “When two emperors appear simultaneously, one must be destroyed.”
French suggests the current period of Chinese expansionism is particularly dangerous not just because it involves a clash between two nuclear-armed powers, but also because China’s leaders are in a race against time. 

The window on their ambitions for regional and broader domination is closing. 

China’s slowing economy means less money for military modernization. 

Worse for China is the fact its population will likely peak by 2025, while the United States will continue to enjoy a steadily increasing population, and resulting economic growth, for a long time to come. 

Much of this U.S. population growth will be powered by immigration. 

Trump may wish to rethink his wall.
All of this matters for Canadians. 

Any armed clash between the United States, our closest ally, and China would be devastating. 

Even if conflict is avoided, we can expect China’s larger ambitions and anxieties will influence the way it manages relations with Canada. 

The carrots and sticks are familiar.
Trade is one potential motivator. 

Even though it flows in China’s favour, its partners, Canada included, are all-too-easily persuaded that permission to do business is a benefit conferred only on those who agree to play by China’s rules. And access to China’s leaders is so carefully meted out and stage-managed that it becomes an objective in itself. 

Leaders refuse to kowtow at their peril. 

Recall that former prime minister Stephen Harper was widely castigated for declining to attend the Beijing Olympics in 2008, which took place only months after ugly scenes of unrest and repression in Tibet.
For Canada, managing relations with an expansionist and impatient China will not be easy. 

French’s closing words seem particularly apt for us. 

He notes, reasonably enough, that China has much to contribute and deserves to be treated as an equal. 

That’s not a problem. 

It’s the next part of French’s formula that Ottawa so often either avoids or gets wrong. 

It is also important, he says, to approach China with “understated but resolute firmness.”
That’s another way of saying that, like China, we need to align our international strategy with a hard-nosed reading of national interest. 

Let’s hope Ottawa’s mandarins are paying attention.

Chinese Aggressions

What Makes China's Fake Islands so Dangerous

By Kyle Mizokami

In recent years the People’s Republic of China has laid claim to ninety percent of the South China Sea, buttressing this claim by creating artificial islands with dredging equipment. 

These claims run roughshod over Beijing’s neighbors, which have competing claims. 

The discovery in 2016 that China had militarized these artificial islands was not exactly surprising, but just how useful are these islands in defense of China’s strategic goals?
China’s campaign to militarize the South China Sea began in 2009, when it submitted a new map to the United Nations showing the now-infamous “Nine-Dash Line”—a series of boundary dashes over the South China Sea that it claimed demarcated Chinese territory. 

Since then, China has expanded at least seven reefs and islets in the sea with sand dredged from the ocean floor, including Subi Reef, Mischief Reef, Johnson Reef, Hughes Reef, Gaven Reef, Fiery Cross Reef and Cuarteron Reef.
According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative [3], Beijing has created more 3,200 acres of new land. 

China initially claimed its “territory” was being developed for peaceful purposes, from aid to mariners to scientific research, yet many of the islands now feature military-length airfields, antiaircraft and antimissile guns [4], and naval guns. 

Cuarteron Reef now has a new High Frequency early-warning radar facility [5] for detecting incoming aircraft, a development difficult to square with a peaceful mission. 

Farther north, but still in disputed territory, China has installed HQ-9 long-range surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island.
On the face of it, China’s territorial grab and apparent turn away from former leader Hu Jintao’s concept of “peaceful rise” is hard to understand. 

It has alienated China’s neighbors and drawn in other powers, including the United States, India and Japan. 

One theory is that the country’s leadership may have calculated that securing a bastion for China’s sea-based nuclear deterrent may be worth the diplomatic fallout it created.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union’s ballistic-missile submarines operated from two protective “bastions,” on the Atlantic side in the Barents Sea, and on the Pacific side in the Sea of Okhotsk. There, Soviet missile submarines could be covered by land-based air and naval forces to them from enemy aircraft, ships and attack submarines.
China’s nuclear “dyad” of land- and sea-based missiles relies in part on four Jin-class ballistic-missile submarines. 

China believes American ballistic-missile defenses threaten to undermine the credibility of its modest nuclear deterrent. 

In the Chinese view, this makes a protective bastion even more important.
The country’s geography leaves it with basically one ocean, the Pacific, for its own bastion. 

The Northern Pacific, with the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet and the nearly fifty destroyers of the Japan Maritime Self Defense Force, is a no-go. 

The South China Sea, on the other hand, is bordered by a number of relatively weak states that could not pose a threat to China’s nuclear-missile submarines.
Sailing ships and flying aircraft through the South China Sea is one thing, but a permanent presence on the ground solidifies China’s hold on the region. 

It also allows, as the case of the HF radar on Cuarteron Reef demonstrates, the installation of a permanent sensor network.
The ports and airfields under construction will almost certainly grow to defend the region, with help from the mainland, from a complex antisubmarine warfare campaign designed to go after China’s seagoing nuclear weapons.
More surface-to-air missile batteries such as the HQ-9 and land-based antiship missiles are likely, if only to protect other military installations such as airfields and radar systems. 

Recent freedom-of-navigation operations by the United States and its allies will be used as a justification for heavier defenses. 

To paraphrase an old saying about bureaucracy, the military presence is growing to meet the needs of the growing military presence.
This points to the Achilles’ heel of China’s island garrisons: in the long run, they are impossible to defend. 

Unlike ships, the islands are fixed in place and will never move. 

Small islands cannot stockpile enough troops, surface-to-air missiles, food, water and electrical capacity to remain viable defensive outposts. 

As Iwo Jima and Okinawa demonstrated, there is no viable defense in depth for islands even miles across.
In any military confrontation with the United States, China’s at-sea outposts would almost certainly be quickly rolled back by waves of airstrikes and cruise missile attacks, devastating People’s Liberation Army facilities and stranding the personnel manning them. 

How China would respond to such an attack on its nuclear bastion is an open question that should be given serious consideration, as victory in the South China Sea may not herald the end of a campaign but a dangerous new turn in the war itself.
China’s military outposts in the South China Sea are a breach of Beijing’s agreement to not militarize the sea. 

Although the region itself has great strategic value, they are a poor defensive solution, prone to rapid destruction in wartime. 

China would be wise to consider the islands only as a temporary solution, until the People’s Liberation Army Navy has enough hulls to maintain a permanent presence in the region.

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.

Sina Delenda Est

China installs weapons systems on artificial islands
By David Brunnstrom | WASHINGTON

A satellite image shows what CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says appears to be anti-aircraft guns and what are likely to be close-in weapons systems (CIWS) on the artificial island Subi Reef in the South China Sea in this image released on December 13, 2016.

A satellite image shows what CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says appears to be anti-aircraft guns and what are likely to be close-in weapons systems (CIWS) on the artificial island Fiery Cross Reef in the South China Sea in this image released on December 13, 2016.

A satellite image shows what CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says appears to be anti-aircraft guns and what are likely to be close-in weapons systems (CIWS) on the artificial island Johnson Reef in the South China Sea in this image released on December 13, 2016.

A satellite image shows what CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative says appears to be anti-aircraft guns and what are likely to be close-in weapons systems (CIWS) on the artificial island Hughes Reef in the South China Sea in this image released on December 13, 2016.

China appears to have installed weapons, including anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, on all seven of the artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea, a U.S. think tank reported on Wednesday, citing new satellite imagery.
The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said its findings come despite statements by the Chinese leadership that Beijing has no intention to militarize the islands in the strategic trade route, where territory is claimed by several countries.
AMTI said it had been tracking construction of hexagonal structures on Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs in the Spratly Islands since June and July. 

China has already built military length airstrips on these islands.
"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," it said citing images taken in November and made available to Reuters.
"This model has gone through another evolution at (the) much-larger bases on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs."
Satellite images of Hughes and Gaven reefs showed what appeared to be anti-aircraft guns and what were likely to be close-in weapons systems (CIWS) to protect against cruise missile strikes, it said.
Images from Fiery Cross Reef showed towers that likely contained targeting radar, it said.
AMTI said covers had been installed on the towers at Fiery Cross, but the size of platforms on these and the covers suggested they concealed defense systems similar to those at the smaller reefs.
"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," it said.
"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."

PHILIPPINES CONCERNED
Philippine Foreign Affairs spokesperson Charles Jose told Reuters they were still verifying the report.
"But if report is true, then it is a cause for serious concern because it tends to raise tension and undermine peace and stability in the region," Jose said.
Vietnam's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
AMTI director Greg Poling said AMTI had spent months trying to figure out what the purposes of the structures was.
"This is the first time that we're confident in saying they are anti-aircraft and CIWS emplacements. We did not know that they had systems this big and this advanced there," he told Reuters.
"This is militarization. The Chinese can argue that it's only for defensive purposes, but if you are building giant anti-aircraft gun and CIWS emplacements, it means that you are prepping for a future conflict.
"They keep saying they are not militarizing, but they could deploy fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles tomorrow if they wanted to," he said. 

"Now they have all the infrastructure in place for these interlocking rings of defense and power projection."

The report said the installations would likely back up a defensive umbrella provided by a future deployment of mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) platforms like the HQ-9 system deployed to Woody Island in the Paracel Islands, farther to the north in the South China Sea.
It forecast that such a deployment could happen "at any time," noting a recent Fox News report that components for SAM systems have been spotted at the southeastern Chinese port of Jieyang, possibly destined for the South China Sea.
Singapore-based South China Sea expert Ian Storey said he believed the move would help ready the facilities for the probable next step of China flying jet fighters and military transport planes to its new runways.
“From the outset it’s been quite obvious that the artificial islands were designed to serve as military outposts in the South China Sea,” said Storey, of the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.
“Even while tensions are at a relatively low ebb, I think we can expect to see military flights to the Spratlys in the coming months – including the first jet fighters,” Storey said.
China has said military construction on the islands will be limited to necessary defensive requirements.
The United States has criticized what it called China's militarization of its maritime outposts and stressed the need for freedom of navigation by conducting periodic air and naval patrols near them that have angered Beijing.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, has also criticized Chinese behavior in the South China Sea while signaling he may adopt a tougher approach to China's assertive behavior in the region than Barack Obama.
The State Department said it would not comment on intelligence matters, but spokesman John Kirby added: "We consistently call on China as well as other claimants to commit to peacefully managing and resolving disputes, to refrain from further land reclamation and construction of new facilities and the militarization of disputed features."