India should not get mired in SCS dispute: China

BEIJING: India should avoid “unnecessary entanglement” in the South China Sea dispute during Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Delhi to prevent it from becoming yet “another factor” to impact bilateral ties, a state-run Chinese daily said on Tuesday.

Recent satellite photographs show Beijing has built concrete aircraft hangars on reefs and features in the South China Sea (SCS), a Washingtonbased think tank said even as Japan warned China on Tuesday that ties were deteriorating over another maritime dispute.

The photographs indicating further militarisation of the already tense region emerged less than a month after an international tribunal ruled that China doesn’t have historical rights over the South China Sea, handing petitioner and Beijing’s much smaller neighbour, the Philippines, a boost in the ongoing tussle.

The imagery released by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) showed hangars on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs in the Spratly Islands, known as Nansha in China, which claims most of the South China Sea.

The islands and reefs are also claimed by Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan.

The CSIS released the report with the headline “Build and They Will Come: China Prepares Spratlys for Military Aircraft”.

“Civilian planes landed on Subi and Mischief reefs for the first time on July 12, giving China three operational runways in the disputed Spratly Islands. Except for a brief visit by a military transport plane to Fiery Cross Reef earlier this year, there is no evidence that Beijing has deployed military aircraft to these outposts,” the report said.

Meanwhile, Japan warned bilateral ties were deteriorating after dozens of Chinese vessels sailed into the disputed waters of the East China Sea.

Japan’s foreign minister Fumio Kishida called in Chinese envoy Cheng Yonghua for the second time since Friday to protest the incursion, and told him China was trying to change the status quo unilaterally.