China may soon be, if it is not already, able to house up to three air force fighter regiments at its outposts in the South China Sea, according to a new Department of Defense report.
China has equipped all seven of its artificial islands in the Spratly Islands with defense infrastructure.
“China appears to have built significant point-defense capabilities, in the form of large anti-aircraft guns and probable close-in weapons systems, at each of its outposts in the Spratly Islands,” the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative reported in December last year. China’s focus now appears to be enhancing the capabilities of its larger outposts on Fiery Cross, Subi, and Mischief Reefs, according to the Pentagon.
“As of late 2016, China was constructing 24 fighter-sized hangars, fixed-weapons positions, barracks, administration buildings, and communication facilities at each of the three outposts,” the Pentagon report explains. “Once all these facilities are complete, China will have the capacity to house up to three regiments of fighters in the Spratly Islands.”
China has already installed fixed, land-based naval guns on the four smaller Spratly outposts on Johnson, Gaven, Hughes, and Cuarteron Reefs.
The airfields, berthing areas, and resupply facilities in the Spratly Islands allow China to maintain a more flexible and permanent military and coast guard presence in the South China Sea. “This would improve China’s ability to detect and challenge activities by rival claimants or third parties, widen the range of capabilities available to China, and reduce the time required to deploy them,” the Department of Defense report asserts.
China has also been expanding its military presence in the Paracel Islands.
“Although its land reclamation and artificial islands do not strengthen China’s territorial claims as a legal matter or create any new territorial sea entitlements,” the Department of Defense report explains, “China will be able to use its reclaimed features as persistent civil-military bases to enhance its presence in the South China Sea and improve China’s ability to control the features and nearby maritime space.”
China’s vast claims to the South China Sea were discredited last year by an international arbitration tribunal, which ruled against the validity of China’s nine-dashed line, the demarcation for China’s claims. The Trump administration conducted its first freedom-of-navigation operation in late May, sending the USS Dewey within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef.
“It is perfectly normal for China to build defense facilities on its own territory,” a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said last year, “This is the normal right of a sovereign state as recognized by international law.”
“If China’s building of normal facilities and deploying necessary territorial defensive facilities on its own islands is considered militarization, then what is the sailing of fleets into the South China Sea?” he added, referring to American freedom-of-navigation operations. “If somebody is flexing their muscles on your doorstep, can’t you at least get a slingshot?”
Beijing was highly critical of the new Pentagon report. The report makes “irresponsible remarks on China’s national defense development and reasonable actions in defending our territorial sovereignty and security interests in disregard of the facts,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday.
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